Disgraced ex-cop Thomas James Booker avoids more time after pleading guilty to child exploitation charges
A former cop who became an online drug lord has been sentenced – again – after he admitted to possessing child exploitation material.
Mount Gambier
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A former SA cop and convicted drug lord has dodged further time in jail after he pleaded guilty to possessing child exploitation material.
Thomas James Booker, 28, obtained abuse material on February 10 and April 19, 2021, as he was amassing his fortune through his dark-web drug enterprise.
After leaving SA Police in 2018, Booker began operating the Underlinecost account.
He made his riches by purchasing cannabis, cocaine and the psychedelic hallucinogen psilocin wholesale, then breaking them down into smaller units for sale online.
He also trafficked in large commercial amounts of LSD as well as laundering more than $300,000 cash and importing 8000 tabs of the drug from the Netherlands.
Booker, who previously pleaded to more than 50 drug trafficking and money laundering charges, pleaded guilty to two counts of possessing child exploitation material on Thursday in the Mount Gambier Magistrates Court.
In April the District Court stripped Booker of the wealth he accumulated as part of his drug empire.
Hundreds of thousands in cash, luxury bottles of alcohol, crypto wallets, shares and a lone silver ingot were seized.
During sentencing Judge Davison said the demand for drugs “skyrocketed” during the pandemic, and Booker “sold out of stock” in the first week of the pandemic.
“These offences were committed at a time when many areas of Australia were experiencing lockdown as a result of the pandemic,” she said.
“The fact that people could purchase drugs with relative anonymity no doubt encouraged those who would not otherwise have engaged in the dangerous and seedier side of drug dealing.
“You both effectively normalised drug-buying as if it were any other form of online shopping … to you, it felt no different than selling on eBay.
“The damage you have done, and the misery you have caused, cannot be underestimated.”
The ex-cop fought back tears when the District Court jailed him for 21 years, with a non-parole period of 15 years and two months in April.
He will be ineligible for parole until January 22, 2037.
Magistrate Koula Kossiavelos handed Booker an additional one year and five month term of imprisonment for his possession of child exploitation material.
However, the sentence was suspended on a $500 two-year good behaviour bond.
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