DUBLIN, Ireland -- The last of four men convicted of kidnapping a member of Ireland's Guinness brewing-banking dynasty was sentenced Tuesday to more than 12 years in prison.
Brian McNicholl, 49, a Dublin building contractor, was sentenced to 12 years and nine months for the April kidnapping of Jennifer Guinness, 48, wife of banker John Henry Guinness.
McNicholl was convicted Monday of kidnapping and firearms charges by a Circuit Criminal Court jury.
Judge Dominic Lynch said he accepted police evidence that McNicholl's role in the kidnapping was to provide 'a safe house' for detaining Guinness.
Three other men were sentenced earlier to between 14 and 17 years in the kidnapping.
Guinness was abducted April 8 from her luxury home in Howth, a suburb of Dublin, by three gunmen who demanded $1.45 million ransom.
She was freed unharmed April 16 by police who surrounded the Dublin house where she was being held and captured her kidnappers.
After the sentencing, Guinness told reporters that during her kidnapping she was aware that relatives were talking with her captors about a $420,000 payment.
'I felt if a ransom had been paid, I would never have gotten out,' she said. 'In my heightened emotional state at the time I was not optimistic of being released.'
