License helps man obtain weapon

BANGOR – Niall Clarke’s journey to a local bank, where he pointed a loaded gun at bank tellers and fled with more than $10,000 in cash, began with a chance encounter in a Boston bar with a Maine Bureau of Motor Vehicles official on St. Patrick’s Day 2006.

Robert O’Connell, the BMV’s director of licensing services, helped Clarke obtain a Maine driver’s license believing the Irishman was in the country illegally, court documents reveal. Clarke’s visa expired two weeks after he obtained a Maine driver’s license in April 2006.

O’Connell did not know Clarke intended to use the driver’s license to buy a gun in Brewer and brandish it while robbing the Bank of America branch on Bangor Mall Boulevard on Oct. 4, 2006. Clarke was arrested on Interstate 95 moments after bank employees provided police with the license plate number of his getaway car.

Clarke, 27, is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Bangor. Under the federal sentencing guidelines, the native of Kilrush, County Clare, Ireland, is facing 10 years in prison, give or take a few months.

He pleaded guilty on Jan. 2, 2007, to armed bank robbery, brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence, lying on an application to buy a gun and unlawful possession of a firearm.

The story of how Clarke got the license he used as ID to purchase the gun is outlined in the federal prosecutor’s sentencing memorandum that was filed late Monday in federal court in Bangor.

Clarke, who was living and working as a carpenter in Boston in March 2006, told O’Connell that he was having trouble getting a license in Massachusetts because of his illegal immigration status. O’Connell told Clarke, according to court documents, that if he were living in Maine, he would be able to get a license. The men exchanged e-mail addresses and over the next month O’Connell told Clarke how to get a license in Maine.

O’Connell, who still heads the licensing division, went further, according to court documents, and personally expedited the handling of Clarke’s application. O’Connell also e-mailed to Clarke the name of a friend in Portland who had a small construction firm where the Irishman might find work.

Clarke, who told O’Connell he did not have an Irish driver’s license, used a Portland address, according to court documents. It is unclear whether he ever actually lived at the address full time. In an e-mail to O’Connell, he said that he was renting a room on Cushman Street but was there only on weekends.

O’Connell testified before a federal grand jury on Oct. 17, 2006, and, under subpoena, produced the e-mails he exchanged with Clarke and the Irishman’s application for a Maine license. Clarke was indicted by that grand jury a week later.

Prosecutors have used the incident between the Irish man and O’Connell to show that Clarke, who claims to suffer from a mental illness, was capable of carrying out normal tasks such as getting a driver’s license.

In his sentencing memorandum, Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd Lowell argued that Clarke also was able to execute a plan that included obtaining identification and using it to buy a gun illegally. The Irishman has admitted that he lied on the federal application to purchase the gun and ammunition used in the robbery when he said he was a U.S. citizen.

Defense attorney Richard Hartley of Bangor has urged U.S. District Judge John Woodcock to depart from the federal sentencing guidelines and impose a lesser sentence because of his client’s mental illness.

Clarke’s parents and Irish reporters are expected to attend the sentencing.

jharrison@bangordailynews.net

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