The Ennis conspiracy to murder trial has heard that Sharon Collins obtained a marriage certificate for herself and PJ Howard from Mexico without his knowledge.
45-year-old Sharon Collins from Ennis and Essam Eid a 52-year-old from Las Vegas deny conspiring to murder PJ Howard and his two sons Robert and Niall in August 2006.
The Central Criminal Court heard that Ms Collins instructed a proxy marriage service to send the certificate to the address of her accountant and friend and said it was her solicitor.
Emails retrieved by gardaí show Ms Collins also made further efforts to have the certificate authenticated in Mexico some months after it was received.
At the time she said while it was good enough for passport requirements here she was concerned it would affect inheritance rights.
When questioned about this by gardaí Ms Collins said that no marriage had taken place and that it was a fake certificate and was not valid.
She said she did not tell PJ Howard about it at the time but had informed him later.
One of the original emails to the proxy marriage service appeared to be from PJ Howard, the court heard.
She told gardaí it was simply a 'con job' and that neither of them had ever been to Mexico.
She agreed that she had to send birth certificates for herself and PJ Howard along with his wife's death certificate and her divorce papers in order to receive the certificate.
The trial also heard that PJ Howard had planned to make provision in his will for Sharon Collins to pay off mortgages on a number of properties she owned.
In garda interviews Ms Collins said she had three properties and PJ had planned to include in his will that the mortgages be paid off in the event of his death. However she said it had not yet been done.
The trial also heard that Ms Collins denied writing a number of emails to a hitman for hire address. During interviews with gardaí it was pointed out to her that the email traffic to the alleged hitman moved from Ireland to Spain at the same time that she had travelled to Spain.
It was also put to her that the 'lying eyes' email address was set up from a computer in the office of Downes and Howard to which she had access.
Gardaí said it was unlikely to have been set up by any of the three others who had access to the computer as they were the subject of the alleged hit.
