Ex St Edmunds students Mitchell Price, Keegan Moore snorted cocaine in front of cops
Two “stupid” private school mates - one of whom works at a top accounting firm - have copped a dressing down from a magistrate for snorting cocaine in plain sight out the front of a pub.
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A no-nonsense magistrate has blasted two private school boys as “stupid” for snorting cocaine out the front of a NSW pub, in front of police, asking “hasn’t anyone told you about the bathroom?”.
PricewaterhouseCoopers accountant Mitchell Anthony Price, 26, of Turner in the ACT, and his St Edmund’s College schoolmate, electrician Keegan Brendan Moore, 26, of Casey in the ACT, both pleaded guilty at the Queanbeyan Local Court on Monday after police spotted Price out the front of the Jerrabomberra Hotel last month.
Court records show Price had a “straw like-shaped object” up his nose out the front of the pub when police pulled up out the front.
The mates had been out drinking for the first time in months after pubs reopened, and decided to go halves in a $300 bag of cocaine.
When police approached the duo, they became “increasingly nervous” and when told they would be searched for drugs, Price put his hand into his pants pocket.
“Police told (Price) to remove his hands from his pocket and as he pulled his hand out with his finger bent towards his palm in a fist … (he) dropped a small clear resealable bag containing white powder which landed between his feet,” court records said.
Both Price and Moore admitted to the drugs being theirs.
Police also found a rolled up $50 note with white powder on it in Price’s back pocket.
Price, in told the court in a letter, he planned to start a job in Washington DC when he can travel to the US, and said a criminal record would hurt his chances of getting a visa.
While Moore said he had to tell his girlfriend he had been charged with drug possession in the same week they moved into a new house together.
Magistrate Roger Clisdell described the two as “young and stupid”.
“Sometime during the night they … thought it would be a good time to have a little snort,” he said.
He said snorting cocaine while people were concerned about COVID-19 would raise suspicions, because the drug can “make your nose run”.
Mr Clisdell said the two were particularly “stupid” for taking drugs in plain sight out the front of the pub.
“Hasn’t anyone told you about bathrooms?” he said.
“We can’t help stupidity.”
Mr Clisdell recorded no convictions and dismissed the charges, saying: “I don’t want to see either of you again in this court”.