Jermaine Piana pleads guilt to raft of drug charges
An Illawarra woman has pleaded guilty to a raft of drug charges after she was found with 13 grams of ice in her car, which she claimed she purchased after a huge pokie payout.
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An Oak Flats woman who was found with 13 grams of ice during a traffic stop told police the drug was for her own personal use, and that she’d been able to afford the huge haul after a $65,000 pokie win.
Jermaine Lucy Piana, 31, pleaded guilty to a raft of drug supply charges at Wollongong Local Court this week, after she was stopped by police at Mt Warrigal on December 12 last year.
According to court documents, police spotted Piana’s Holden Cruze parked on Chapman Ave late that evening and pulled her over.
Noticing her “fidgety hands and rapid breathing”, police searched her car and handbag.
Officers quickly found 4.7g of cocaine, 0.27g of heroin and 12 LSD tablets weighing 0.13g, as well as $800 cash.
In the footwell of the Holden Cruze, police also uncovered a container with almost 14 grams of meth stashed inside.
According to the documents, Piana told police she was a “heavy drug user” and had suffered from substance abuse issues for the past 10 years.
The 31-year-old told police she’d bought the meth in bulk after a $65,000 pokie win, because she used the drug daily.
However, police believed the drugs were for supply, not personal use and charged her with two counts of supply prohibited drug, four counts of possess prohibited drug, and one count of deal with proceeds of crime, to which she pleaded guilty on Tuesday.
She was released on conditional bail following the incident but reverted back to her old ways shortly after.
Documents reveal police raided Piana’s Oak Flats home on March 11, finding cocaine, MDMA, meth and panadeine forte that she didn’t have a prescription for.
The drugs were hidden in a safe in Piana’s bedroom, in the ceiling inside a cupboard and in plain view on her dresser, according to court documents.
Several notebooks were also located which contained names of different people with lists of various values from $100 to $10,000 beside them.
Piana again denied being involved in the supply of drugs, telling police she was a heavy drug user and all of it was for her own use.
She was additionally charged with deal with proceeds of crime, possession of equipment for administering prohibited drugs, three counts of supply prohibited drug and owner/ occupier knowingly allow use as drug premises.
Piana, who is currently on remand in custody, admitted her guilt to the offences on Tuesday.
She will return to court in September for sentencing.