‘Breaking Bad’ drug syndicate’s Nicole Earthrowl walks free

A STRIPPER turned ice queen has walked free despite admitting trafficking as part of a ring dubbed the “Breaking Bad syndicate”. Details have emerged of how the group was brought down, including damning evidence found at her home.

A STRIPPER turned ice queen has walked free from court despite admitting trafficking as part of a ring dubbed the “Breaking Bad syndicate” after the cult hit TV show.

The Gold Coast network got its name after Nicole Leanne Earthrowl’s syndicate partner, Griffith University biochemistry PhD student Jason Mackenzie, 44, was busted cooking “ice” in the garage of his Robina home.

Mackenzie, who tutored medicine students at the Nathan campus in Brisbane’s southern suburbs, was sentenced to three years jail for drug production in August but could be free as soon as July.

Mackenzie has been likened to the fictional high school chemistry teacher Walter White in Breaking Bad, who uses his training to build an ice empire.

Mackenzie was working with Earthrowl’s boyfriend, Serbian tiler Sasha Pesovic, 51, to make the drugs using his role at the university as a “cover” to import glassware and equipment from overseas.

Pesovic told police he wanted to go into production so he could cut out the middlemen, NSW outlaw bikie gangs.

Between June 2010 and May 2013, Pesovic imported 13kg of ice in 61 trips to Sydney then smuggled it to the Gold Coast in hire cars.

Police estimated Pesovic’s business was thriving, with gross revenues tipping as high as $4.15 million.

When police raided the Upper Coomera home which mother-of-two Earthrowl shared with Pesovic, they found cheat-sheets titled “How to mass produce methylamphetamine” in Pesovic’s car along with 15 grams of pure “ice”.

Pesovic was on-selling the drugs to flashy Gold-Coast based Albanian drug lord Sadri Ahmetaj, 45, and others. In October, Pesovic was given a five-year wholly suspended sentence for trafficking.

Breaking Bad characters Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) and Walter White (Bryan Cranston). Pic: Frank Ockenfels/AMC

Pesovic told a separate court hearing that he gave police information about the 2011 stabbing murder of a man on board a houseboat moored in the Hope Island Marina. Pesovic gave evidence against the alleged killer, Nikolaus Blyton, in a committal hearing in January.

In the Supreme Court on Thursday, Earthrowl admitted she sold ice by texting customers with the phrase “do you want to take the dogs for a walk?”.

Earthrowl told her psychologist Heinz Albrecht, in a report tendered in court, that her breasts were slashed by a former lover in a fight.

Four years ago an ex-boyfriend was acquitted of slashing open her chest and removing her implants during a fight in 2004. He claimed she cut her own breasts to get a compensation payout.

Earthrowl told Dr Albrecht she has turned over a new leaf and is now “a member of her local library, enjoys reading and walking her dog”.

She told the court she has been working at Greencross vets in Bundall and studying to become a vet nurse.

In February this year she was listed as the registrant of the stripper-booking website buxparty strippers.com.au.

Justice Ann Lyons sentenced Earthrowl to a four-year suspended jail term.