Nathan Baggaley: ‘The lure of drug cash was too much’
OLYMPIC medallist Nathan Baggaley talks like a sports star but acts like a career criminal in his last interview before starting another stint behind bars.
OLYMPIC medallist Nathan Baggaley is in the confines of Grafton jail when he sees a familiar face. Baggaley shakes his head.
The face is that of a repeat offender who has returned for yet another stint behind bars after committing a crime only days after being released. The man looks at home in jail.
Baggaley looks at the man and thinks to himself: “You’re back again. How are you comfortable in here?”
It’s before November 2011 and Baggaley is coming up for parole after serving his sentence for dealing ecstasy. Once he gets out, he’s not coming back, he tells himself.
He missed the 2008 Beijing Olympics because of his legal troubles. But he’s still in his mid-30s, so there’s time to recapture the form that saw him win three consecutive kayaking world titles and two silver medals at the 2004 Athens Olympics.
Fast forward less than two years and Baggaley has stepped into the role of the repeat offender.
After walking out of Grafton Correctional Centre into the arms of his parents and then partner Emeere Roberts on November 20, 2011, it’s not even two years later before Baggaley finds himself behind bars again.
At 11.20pm on November 1, 2013, he was arrested on the driveway of a home on Kennedy Dr in Tweed Heads West and charged over a plot to manufacture 18,000 pills of the party drug 2C-B and a relatively small amount of methamphetamine. He pleaded guilty in Central Local Court on February 25 and is in jail again.
“I’m now one of those guys I used to bag,” Baggaley said. He makes the comment on March 10 sitting at a hardwood table at the far end of the Cudgen Headland Surf Life Saving Club balcony overlooking Kingscliff Beach, not far from his home south of Tweed Heads.
“I’m now one of those guys I used to bag”
In the lead-up to his sentence, Baggaley agreed to analyse how he went from being a celebrated Olympian to a two-time convicted criminal.
In his prime, Baggaley was a world-beating sprint kayaker. He burst on the scene in March 1997, almost beating Australian kayaking legend and 1992 Olympic gold medallist Clint Robinson in the K1 1000m race at the Australian Sprint Championships.
In 1998, 22-year-old Baggaley dethroned Robinson as the Australian 1000m champion. Robinson had owned the title for seven years.
In 2000, Baggaley was included in the Australian team at the Sydney 2000 Olympics. He competed in the K1 500m event but was eliminated in controversial circumstances by Bulgarian Petar Merkov, who had failed a drug test prior to the Games.
With marketable looks as well as freak sporting ability, he was announced as a finalist in the Cleo Bachelor of the year contest in 2001.
Baggaley put the disappointment of the Sydney Olympics behind him by winning the world championship in the K1 500m three years in a row. The wins put Baggaley in the stratosphere of being one of the nation’s most celebrated athletes.
His first victory came in Seville, in Spain, in 2002. Baggaley paddled in lane eight and was trailing in sixth at the 250m mark before he stormed home to win.
That year, Baggaley was the runner-up to swimmer Ian Thorpe for the NSW Sports Institute’s top award, athlete of the year prize. The following year he was the Australian Institute of Sport’s athlete of the year.
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He was a gold medal hope at the 2004 Athens Olympics but finished with two silvers, one in the K1 500m. The other was in the K2 500m where he and Robinson set aside their bitter rivalry to team up for the event.
Baggaley’s problems began in 2005 when it emerged that he tested positive to steroids. He was suspended for 15 months in 2006 after the Court of Arbitration and Sport accepted his explanation that he accidentally drank from a steroid-laced bottle of juice, which belonged to his younger brother Dru.
In 2007, the International Canoe Federation extended his ban to two years, which badly disrupted his preparation for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. In October that year, Canoeing Australia rejected his reinstatement application.
Baggaley went off the rails in the drug scene. In 2009, he and Dru were jailed for their roles in an ecstasy ring around the Gold Coast and Byron Bay. Now 40, Baggaley said sport was his life and being shut out following the steroid suspension sent his life into a tailspin he is yet to come out of.
“Overnight it was pulled from me,” he said. “I had my livelihood pulled. I had everything pulled.
“I lost faith in the system. I knew I hadn’t cheated, yet I was deemed a cheat”
“I lost that regimen, I lost routine. I was like, ‘What do I do now?’ My life changed that day.”
He is still bitter about being locked out of his sport and said: “I lost faith in the system. I knew I hadn’t cheated, yet I was deemed a cheat. I lost respect for the system and I guess I started rebelling.”
Baggaley fell further on December 17, 2015. He was jailed for a second time for a minimum two years and three months for his latest drug offences. With the time he spent behind bars as the case unfolded, he could be out by November.
It could have been worse for him. He was originally facing nine charges, including conspiring to import a commercial quantity of illegal drugs.
But his lawyers Simon Joyner and Greg James QC negotiated with prosecutors for Baggaley to plead guilty to two charges relating to a significantly smaller amount of drugs. But there’s whispers that prosecution lawyers may appeal to extend the sentence.
At the surf club before the sentencing Baggaley said: “I’m not a career criminal. I’m not someone that’s done this their whole life.
“I’m not someone who mixes with criminals all the time.”
It’s a strange statement from someone who is about to be sent to jail for a second time for roughly the same crime. But it is clear how Baggaley can rationalise his status as a two-time felon.
Put simply, his mind is still in the kayak. Baggaley still defines himself as an athlete. The question is at what point will his identity as a criminal overtake his identity as an athlete?
Baggaley still talks like an elite athlete. It’s a byproduct of spending years on the Australian team and in the media spotlight.
He talks about his drug exploits and his impending stint in jail like an athlete dissecting his performance at a press conference.
The language is similar — “disappointed” at poor results and steering away from negative self-talk, instead focusing on “moving forward” to positive results.
“I guess for me it is someone who has been involved in crime most of their life through their teenage years, are in and out of jail repeatedly”
So, if he doesn’t fit the criteria after being jailed twice for similar drug manufacturing offences, what is his definition of a career criminal?
“I guess for me it is someone who has been involved in crime most of their life through their teenage years, are in and out of jail repeatedly and the only people they know are criminals,” he said.
“For me the majority of my friends are law-abiding, hardworking people.”
So, if he isn’t a career criminal already, does he think he’s at risk of becoming one?
“I’d like to think not,” he said. “It’s going to come down to me and what I do after this (being in jail).
“I’ve got some pretty strong motivation not to go down this path. I’ve got a family that will wipe their hands of me if I do it again. And I’ve got a son I can’t be away from.”
He is referring to his son, Jacob, who is now two years old. It’s a sensitive point. Jacob’s mother, Emeere Roberts, stuck by Baggaley during his first stint in jail. Their relationship is now over, a casualty of Baggaley’s criminal exploits.
She was there on the steps of Grafton Jail when Baggaley was released in 2011 and kept intimate contact with him while he was behind bars. Baggaley let her down at a time when she needed his support.
“I missed the birth of my son,” Baggaley said.
“I was arrested a week before the birth of my son, so that takes a toll. She was all alone.” Ms Roberts gave birth at Murwillumbah Hospital just over a week after Baggaley was arrested in November 2013.
The arrest and a combination of other tensions led to the end of their relationship, Baggaley said.
“When I got out on bail we were living together, we tried to move forward (but) it’s very hard because there’s a lot of resentment and anger,” he said.
“We tried to stay together for the sake of our son but I’d inflicted too much pain on that relationship. It deteriorated.”
The cracks had been appearing for some time before Baggaley missed the birth.
According to a police phone intercept, Ms Roberts sent Baggaley a text message on September 9, 2013, which read: “u have thrown away a life with ur son all so u can live like some drug lord batchalor (sic) king in ur own sad little world”.
Background
On Baggaley’s own account, his younger brother Dru has been front and centre in all of his problems.
When Baggaley tested positive to steroids, he said it was because he drank from the steroid-laced bottle of orange juice that belonged to Dru.
During his first foray selling drugs, Baggaley claims it was Dru who came to him with a proposition to invest money in an MDMA supply network. It saw him sentenced in 2009 to between five and nine years jail. Dru was sentenced to between eight and 12 years. Both were reduced on appeal.
For his most recent offence, Baggaley said Dru, who was still behind bars at Glenn Innes Correctional Centre, brought him into a plan to manufacture the party drug 2C-B and methamphetamine.
When the plan was hatched, 2C-B was still legal. It was banned in mid-2013, several months before they were arrested.
When asked if he blames Dru for ruining his sporting career, Baggaley offered one word: “No.”
Baggaley said there were “heated moments” and their relationship was strained for “about a month”. But the pair mended their bond when Dru came forward to explain that the steroids were his.
“It sent me off the rails and it knocked me around for a while,” he said.
“But blood is thicker than water and at the end of the day I respected him that he came clean.
“Once I knew the explanation I could then move on and move forward. I couldn’t push him away. We needed to be united to explain the situation.”
In relation to his first drug conviction, Baggaley said he was deep in the drugs and party scene in Byron Bay and the Gold Coast following his steroid suspension when Dru approached him with a proposition.
“Within a week I had double the money back”
“He said, ‘I know people that can move and make drugs and all we need is some money’,” Baggaley said. “He said, ‘If you can get me the money we can double our money’.”
Baggaley claims he gave Dru $20,000 to buy MDMA powder, which was pressed into tablet form.
“Within a week I had double the money back,” Baggaley said.
“And I’m like, ‘Shit, I’m reinvesting that. I don’t have to do anything’.
“We got to a point where it snowballed and got away from us. It became too successful.”
He won’t give away the full extent of their operation, explaining: “I don’t want to incriminate myself.
“Potentially, you could be making 100-grand a week. People say, ‘Why are you so stupid to do it?’ Well, it’s pretty hard to say no to that money.
“In the back of your mind you’re thinking, ‘All I have to do is this just once and I’m right — that’s my year’s wage’.
“It’s just a gradual decline. When I look at the start and the finish I’m like, how did I get that far doing that much?”
Baggaley was arrested for the first time on February 5, 2007. He was apprehended with another man at Mermaid Waters on the Gold Coast while driving back to the Gold Coast with more than 700 ecstasy tablets, $1000 cash and marijuana.
The following November, Baggaley and Dru were charged again by police officers investigating drug sales on the NSW and Queensland border, which were due to be supplied to schoolies.
Baggaley is six years and two months older than Dru and said the pair have always been close.
Despite the age gap, when asked who is more dominant in their relationship, Baggaley said: “Probably Dru. He’s a very likeable guy and he’s a very strong personality.
“I’m less aggressive, less open to conflict.” It’s a surprising response, given Baggaley competed at the Olympics and, around the time of this interview, was training as a mixed martial arts fighter.
“That’s not about aggression,” he said about both sports. “It’s the challenge. For me, it’s sport, it’s the cat and mouse, that’s what attracts me.
“There’s definitely no manipulation. It is respect between us and he’s just a stronger personality — it’s that simple.”
While he has been in jail, Dru has been studying a university degree in economics. He has been achieving high distinctions. Those who know Dru say this is an example of his tendency to become fixated when he sets his mind to a cause.
“Potentially, you could be making 100-grand a week. People say, ‘Why are you so stupid to do it?’ Well, it’s pretty hard to say no to that money.”
After his 2011 release, Baggaley was taking phone calls in relation to what led to the attempts to manufacture 2C-B and methamphetamine by July, 2013.
At 40, he has hit an age where his ability to make money from sport has passed.
Baggaley knows he has been unable to transfer the focus and mental fortitude he used to become a world-beating athlete into developing a post-kayaking career.
His problem is similar to that faced by countless retired athletes.
“I don’t have the career opportunities because I’ve been in sport my whole life. My skills are limited.”
He could learn a trade or grind out an honest career path from the bottom. But his ego won’t let him.
“Unfortunately, I consider myself a high achiever so it’s hard to start from the bottom,” he said. “To have achieved the highs of my sport and be at that level of eliteness, to then go back to the bottom, to nothing, it’s tough. It knocks your ego around to be making bottom dollar for a lot of work,” he said.
“It’s all well and good to have a great work ethic but if it’s not rewarding to me — like packing shelves at Woolies — then it’s not going to motivate me. I need something that’s going to challenge me.”
Given the path he has chosen, Baggaley is stuck in limbo: Not wanting to be a criminal, but living with the consequences of his choices to break the law.
“I want to get back in society but I’m getting knock-backs and setbacks everywhere,” he said in relation to his failed attempts to rejoin the sporting fraternity. “The criminal world will have me but I don’t want to go there.
“But you keep getting knocked back and that’s what happens. Sometimes you just go f ... it.”
The reality of another jail term makes him reflect on the way he reacted to the habitual offender during his first prison stint. Does he have an answer for himself as to why he followed the same path?
“Not really,” he said. “What do you tell yourself? It’s like ‘you idiot’. It would have been good to have this realisation before I got in here. Jail is obviously not as scary as the first time. It’s a known factor now.”
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