Ed Westphal sentenced for drug trafficking at Rockhampton jail, Fraser Coast
Death threats to dealers’ kids, secret phone taps and tip offs to cops to cut out competition. It might sound like an Underbelly script but for this Queensland drug kingpin and his family, it’s real life.
Rockhampton
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A “truly evil” drug kingpin who wanted the monopoly on drug supply in Queensland jails has been sentenced and the depth of his dark crimes revealed.
It comes after a major police investigation cracked a secret code being used to spread meth misery and other drugs throughout the prison system.
Ed Westphal, the head of a jail drug trafficking ring which had its base at Booral near Hervey Bay, was first busted trafficking methamphetamines on his home turf in 2019, Rockhampton Supreme Court heard this week.
His second in charge, prolific Fraser Coast criminal Daryl David Hall had been involved in a scuffle with a “bully” in the bathroom at a local nightclub.
The court heard said Hall called Westphal for help after the bully threatened to kill Hall and his family, including children.
Hall said he was confronted by occupants of a car who jumped out at him, armed with guns and bats.
This led to an alleged chase through the streets of Hervey Bay with Hall saying he was going to get “the mother f---ers” and Westphal threatening to “put (accused bully) in a wheelchair for the rest of his life”.
He also called a woman, telling her to bring him a pump action shotgun and tried to organise for someone to pick up the bully and transport him to their location in a car boot.
Police, who were intercepting the pair’s phones and heard the threats, searched two motel rooms where Westphal and Hall were supplying drugs.
They seized $1970 cash, more than 14 grams of substance with 9.94g of pure meth, .22 calibre homemade firearm, a pump action shotgun, a handgun and ammunition.
Westphal threw some items out a sliding door and off a balcony while obstructing a police officer.
The court heard he trafficked drugs from March 2019 to June 2019, supplying methamphetamines on 65 occasions to 40 customers with deliveries taking place at various locations including a phone booth, the IGA near the airport and a Booral address where both men lived with family.
They also used family members, mainly females, as drug couriers and to carry out gun deliveries.
“You held the more elevated position in the business (with Hall),” Justice Graeme Crow said.
He also said one of the indicators of the scale of the operation was the drug debt owed to the pair, including a large debt owed by other drug traffickers.
Hall was sentenced in August 2020 to seven years in prison with a parole eligibility date of July 7, 2021.
After being released on bail for the Hervey Bay trafficking, Westphal was busted in a Rockhampton motel room in possession of 1.956g of meth, $10,800 cash, a handgun, ammunition, nine grams of marijuana and other drug paraphernalia.
He went on to traffic drugs while in Capricornia Correctional Centre for 273 days of his 1664 days of presentence custody.
His “sophisticated” trafficking enterprise involved trying to have a “monopoly” of the jail’s drug supplies by instructing his contacts make anonymous calls to the jail detailing other drug suppliers’ delivery methods.
It also involved adapting the business model due to Covid restrictions put in place after the outbreak in March 2020, price gouging where he made a $130+ profit per point of meth supplied and $280 per strip of Buprenorphine.
Westphal took drug orders from prisoners then passed those orders on to his long-term partner Cinnamon Holly Coughlan, who he met when he was 19-years-old.
At one point the pair’s daughter, who runs child entertainment business Holly’s Jumping Castles, was caught up in the family ring.
Holly May Neilson, 26, previously pleaded guilty in Hervey Bay District Court to five counts of supplying and one count of producing dangerous drugs.
She was sentenced to 18 months in jail but allowed immediate parole.
At Westphal’s sentencing this week, the court heard Coughlan was “the point of contact for drug suppliers, couriers and the paying friends and family of the customers/ the desperate prisoners” and that “couriers were paid with cash or drugs”.
The Covid model involved drugs supplied by mail or “loading up those with outstanding return to prison warrants” with drugs.
Men and women offered to “load body up with drugs”, or “fill me (sic) bum hole up with drugs” to pay off debts, and “smuggle” the drugs into Queensland jails.
Westphal’s calls were monitored and once his drug code was deciphered, police were able to intercept drug couriers when they arrived at Etna Creek.
Of three drug couriers intercepted, police seized 4.24g of meth, 12g of marijuana, 199 strips of Buprenorphine and tobacco.
Police tracked two bank accounts the operation used which received 2012 cash deposits during the trafficking period, totalling $58,651.
Justice Crow said it was estimated the enterprise could have made a profit of $58,995 via Buprenorphine alone, based on information police uncovered about the amount of supplies of the substance, and $270,000 from marijuana if the seized quantities had been sold behind bars.
He said these figures did not include the at least six successful supplies that made it into the jail.
“It is unknown what product and quantity was successfully supplied on those six occasions,” Justice Crow said.
He said police intercepted Coughlan driving along Bingham Road, Booral, erratically on March 27, 2020 and found her in possession of three mobile phones, bank deposit slips, tick books and $565 cash.
“During the search she repeatedly stated she needed to go to the toilet,” Justice Crow said.
“Those requests were denied pending a strip search.”
Police allegedly located 110.099g of meth concealed in her vagina.
About a week later, police raided the property where Coughlan lived with Westphal (before his incarceration), Hall and others.
Coughlan pleaded guilty on February 18, 2021, to one count of trafficking drugs, one of possessing more than two grams of a schedule one drug and two counts of possessing anything used in the commission of a crime.
She was sentenced to nine years in jail by Justice Peter Davis in the Brisbane Supreme Court on July 23, 2021, with three days presentence custody declared as time served and a parole eligibility date of March 27, 2026.
Police seized many handwritten notes, mobile phones, SIM cards, black gloves, water balloons, bank documents and a bundle of orange envelopes identical to those intercepted by Corrective Services.
Weeks later, on April 28, police searched Westphal’s prison cell and seized documents detailing customers information and tick sheets.
Westphal’s prison trafficking period was June 30, 2019- March 28, 2020.
He was previously sentenced in the early 2000’s for 15.5 months of unrelated trafficking.
A report completed in 2019 stated Westphal could have post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, major depression and a poly substance disorder with the report writer suggesting Westphal required “significant treatment”.
Justice Crow said Westphal’s “preying” on prisoners with serious medical conditions and addictions was “truly evil”.
“You may feel free and wasteful to ruin your own life, but you’re taking serious steps to ruin many, many others.
“You are a person who was resistant to the idea of getting away from drugs.... (despite the court hearing he told a doctor he had) the will power and strong mind sufficient to be able to do so.”
Westphal pleaded guilty to two counts of trafficking drugs, possessing more than two grams of a schedule one drug and eight counts of supplying a drug.
Justice Crow sentenced him to a head sentence of 12 years prison, of which the law states he must serve 80 per cent before being eligible for parole and declared 1664 days presentence custody as time served.
Convictions were recorded.
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