FELLONI LOSES HIS SENTENCE APPEAL

CONVICTED drug dealer Anthony Felloni yesterday lost his appeal against a
20-year prison sentence for pushing drugs worth over IEP200,000.

The Court of Criminal Appeal dismissed Felloni's appeal against the
severity of the sentence and explained that the 56-year-old man from
Dominick Street, Dublin, had engaged in drug dealing on a grand scale.

During the hearing, the court heard how Felloni had tested HIV positive,
had become institutionalised and could not manage on his own for more than
two days.

Refusing the application, Mr Justice Hugh O'Flaherty referred to a
probation officer's report which stated Felloni had now tested HIV positive.

The report said Felloni gave no indication he intended to abstain from drug
use in the future and admitted he was using drugs while in custody. It
added that given Mr Felloni's long criminal record it would be difficult to
be optimistic of him making the necessary changes to lead a law-abiding life.

The judge said that the psychiatrist's report on Felloni referred to traits
of institutionalisation.

Mr Justice O'Flaherty said the picture was of unmitigated gloom without a
chink of light.

The Judge said that Felloni had been released in 1993 after being sentenced
to 10 years in 1986 for dealing and "here he is back on the same offences".

He added that the submissions did not complain that the sentences imposed
in this case were not wrong in principle.

Refusing the application, Mr Justice O'Flaherty agreed to backdate the
sentence for a number of months to January 1996.

Felloni had been sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment by the Circuit
Criminal Court in June 1996 for four different charges of possession of
heroin with intent to supply at different locations between August 1994 and
October 1995. Some of the offences were committed while Felloni was on bail.

Earlier in the appeal, Mr Brendan Grogan SC, for Felloni, said that when
sentence was imposed in June 1996, the judge did not mention a number of
matters of significance raised during the hearing, including that Felloni
had pleaded guilty on arraignment and his advanced age.

He said Felloni was addicted to heroin and this was not taken in to account.

Counsel said Felloni would not be due for release until 2011 at 68 years of
age. The sentence was virtually a life sentence with no light at the tunnel
for Felloni.

Mr Eamon Leahy SC, also for Felloni, accepted they were serious offences
which warranted significant terms of imprisonment but a total of 20 years
for man of his age was very severe indeed.

Counsel for the State, Mr Tom O'Connell BL, said one of the charges in
August 1994 related to heroin with a street value of up to IEP150,000.

Felloni, Counsel added, was not street dealing but was wholesaling in
heroin. Counsel told the court that before his 1986 conviction for drugs,

Felloni had 26 previous convictions dating from 1959 which showed a pattern
of a serious and incorrigible criminal.