Terrigal: Craig Phillip Cooney blamed ‘drug debt’ for ‘warehousing’ commercial amount of meth

A man who was taking $250 worth of ice and cocaine a day, along with 10-12 alcoholic drinks and gambling on the pokies, said he was still getting drugs “on credit” rather than dealing himself.

Cooney was caught with just over 1kg of ‘ice’ at his Terrigal address. Picture: NSW Police.

A man caught with more than 1kg of ice said he was still getting drugs “on credit” and digging himself deeper into debt rather than supplying them himself, a court has heard.

But a Crown prosecutor has blasted the claims the man wasn’t turning a profit onselling the drugs as “implausible”.

Craig Phillip Cooney, 34, of Terrigal, faced Gosford Local Court via video link on Friday where he faced a sentence hearing after pleading guilty to supplying a large commercial quantity of methamphetamine along with possessing small amounts of cocaine, steroids and 25g of the prescription anxiety medication Xanax.

Cooney gave evidence at the hearing, telling the court he was using about two grams of meth, one of cocaine, Xanax and between 10-12 alcoholic drinks a day when police raided his Terrigal address on December 15, 2022.

He said in addition to his drug habit, which the court heard was estimated at about $250 a day, Cooney said he was also regularly putting up to $100 through poker machines a few times a week despite only having intermittent work or being on Centrelink payments.

A man has been charged with large commercial drug supply as part of an ongoing investigation on the state’s Central Coast. Picture: NSW Police

But he denied being a drug dealer and instead told the court he agreed to “warehouse” a large amount of drugs at his address for a couple of days in order to wipe a $7500 drug debt and get “free drugs”.

He also told the court he stole 55g of ice from an unnamed source to give to his “on-off” girlfriend at the time who had racked up her own debt, in order to get her out of trouble with her dealers.

Cooney faced a sentence hearing in Gosford District Court on Friday. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Swift

But the Crown prosecutor said it was simply “implausible that a person could consume drugs at the level without a regular source of income or finances” and that Cooney must have been on selling them.

The prosecutor said Cooney must have been a step up from a “street level dealer” and was not entitled to any leniency because of a previous conviction for supplying drugs.

An agreed set of facts states Brisbane Water police established Strike Force Wandarri to investigate the supply of drugs on the Central Coast in 2021.

About 8.30pm on July 17, 2022, police observed Cooney drive to a house at Springfield where he supplied a woman, identified only by the initials KG, with 55.87g of meth.

He was seen leaving the house a short time later.

Five days later police obtained a warrant to search the Springfield address where they found the drugs inside a larger vacuum-sealed bag hidden in a toilet cistern.

His DNA was on the inner bag.

Police searched his Terrigal address in December and found various amounts of ice totalling 1.032kg.

Judge Troy Anderson adjourned the matter to deliver his remarks on sentence on August 1.