Timothy Michael Pitt and Joel Andrew Vasilakis avoid jail over plan to import cocaine from USA
The son of an Adelaide pastor and a bullied ex-private school boy who lived together in an eastern-suburbs “party house” will not be jailed over a cocaine deal.
Police & Courts
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A former private school boy bullied for his wealth and his friend, the son of a pastor who felt he had disappointed his parents, have dodged jail for their roles in a plan to import cocaine from the USA.
Joel Andrew Vasilakis and Timothy Michael Pitt, both now in their thirties, co-owned a luxury car dealership and lived together at an eastern suburbs “party house” when they were arrested in August 2018.
A third man, 23-year-old Jasper James Marshall, was last year jailed for his role in the scheme.
Sentencing Vasilakis and Pitt on Tuesday, Judge Liesl Chapman said Marshall leased five post office boxes in suburban Adelaide in early 2018.
In May of that year, packages were sent to Adelaide from Los Angeles, but they were intercepted by the Australian Border Force and found to contain cocaine in heat-sealed bags.
A total of 275 grams of pure cocaine was found, which had a street value of up to $110,000.
Lawyers for Vasilakis and Pitt had argued their clients’ roles were lesser than Marshall’s, and involved sourcing postal addresses and tracking the packages after they were sent.
Judge Chapman said the breakdown of responsibility was not completely clear, but accepted the younger man had more involvement in the plot.
In deciding not to jail the pair, she said she had given consideration to their personal circumstances, remorse and the significant progress made by each in their rehabilitation.
She said Pitt, 33, originally of Mount Gambier, had grown up feeling the local community had “extremely high expectations” of him because of his parents’ “reputation and social profile”.
“At school, you were bullied for being a rich kid and your father driving nice cars,” she said.
The court heard Pitt moved to Adelaide to attend boarding school, and developed a $1500/week cocaine habit after he became part of Adelaide’s “affluent social scene”.
He and Vasilakis purchased a car dealership in 2017 while they were living together at a St Peter’s property owned by Pitt’s father.
The pair have now “gone separate ways” and Pitt has bought out Vasilakis’ share of the business.
Turning to Vasilakis, Judge Chapman said the 37-year-old is the son of a long-serving Pentecostal Christian Church minister, and the church played a “significant role” in his life up until he left aged 24.
“You were self-conscious at school because your family were high-profile members of the church,” she said.
“You say your parents were disappointed in your Year 12 results … you thought your parents were judgmental of your academic failure.”
Vasilakis, who purchased a truck and started a transport business, saw drugs as “forbidden fruit” and said partying became his life after he shunned his faith.
After both men pleaded guilty to importing a marketable quantity of a border-controlled drug and trafficking in a controlled drug, Judge Chapman handed Pitt a sentence of two years, five months, and Vasilakis of three years.
But she said sending the pair to jail would be of no benefit to them or the community.
Under a Commonwealth order, she ordered that both be immediately released on the condition that they be of good behaviour for the next three years.
They made no comment as they left court separately.
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