Drug trafficker Jonathon Joseph Grimwade sentenced to jail
A man who bounced from one Cairns drug trafficking business to another has learned his fate in court.
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A MAN who bounced from one Cairns drug trafficking business to another has learned his fate in court.
Jonathon Joseph Grimwade, 29, pleaded guilty to two counts of drug trafficking and a number of summary offences in the Cairns Supreme Court on Tuesday.
Crown prosecutor Tegan Grasso told the court Grimwade acted as an employee in a methylamphetamine trafficking ring for three months from December 19, 2019, before he was kicked out by the boss of the business.
Ms Grasso told the court it was then that Grimwade moved in with another man and began trafficking drugs with him from their home.
The court heard that in relation to the first count of trafficking, Grimwade was living in a shed in Portsmith which he supplied drugs from.
He would also make trips to Brisbane to pay for large amounts of methylamphetamine, which were later couriered up to Cairns.
On one occasion, Grimwade flew from Cairns to Brisbane with $17,500 in cash strapped to his body.
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Ms Grasso told the court the business operated from the shed under the guise of it being a legitimate automotive workshop.
The court heard there was a falling-out between Grimwade and his boss on March 11, 2020, and he moved out of the shed.
“That’s where count two starts,” Ms Grasso remarked.
The “much smaller operation” supplied quantities of ice ranging up to about one gram.
“The defendant in return for assistance … was given points of meth or up to a couple of hundred dollars every now and then,” she said.
Grimwade was arrested and taken into custody on June 2020.
Defence barrister Brydie Bilic described her client as a “relatively young man” who had “spiralled deep” into a methylamphetamine addiction.
She also said he had “some prospects of rehabilitation ahead of him” and was seeking “to put this era of his life behind him”.
Justice Jim Henry sentenced Grimwade to four and a half years imprisonment, suspended immediately, taking into account 429 days served in pre-sentence custody.
The suspended sentence will hang over his head for a period of four and a half years.
Originally published as Drug trafficker Jonathon Joseph Grimwade sentenced to jail
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