Shanesse May Perry, 32, jailed for cocaine trafficking
A Gilligan’s manager who ran a “boutique trafficking enterprise”, selling more than $355,000 worth of cocaine to just one customer has been jailed in the Cairns Supreme Court.
A Cairns woman who ran a “boutique trafficking enterprise”, selling more than $355,000 worth of cocaine to just one customer has been jailed.
Shanesse May Perry, 32, pleaded guilty in the Cairns Supreme Court to one count of trafficking in a dangerous drug and one count of possessing a dangerous drug in excess of two grams.
Crown prosecutor Christian Peters said Ms Perry ran a “bespoke trafficking enterprise” and trafficked cocaine for 17 months from May 2022 to October 2023.
“I label it as bespoke as primarily she had one single customer, albeit she provided that person with substantial amounts over that period,” Mr Peters said.
Mr Peters told the court she bought ounces of cocaine for $7,000 and charged her client $9,800 an ounce, supplying him fortnightly, and typically cutting seven grams per ounce for her own use and replacing it with creatine.
The court was told Ms Perry supplied the drug more than 50 times over the 17 month period, with a total sales price of $355,650.
The court was told her client was a FIFO worker who had received a roughly $400,000 inheritance, enabling him to purchase copious amounts of the drug.
Defence barrister Rachelle Logan said Perry was the child of drug-user parents, describing her childhood as “disadvantaged”.
Ms Logan said Perry was educated until year nine and started to abuse alcohol and cannabis once she left school.
She worked consistently in the hospitality and tourism sectors, most recently being employed at Gilligan’s as a manager, the court was told.
She was introduced to ketamine and cocaine through the Cairns “nightclub scene”.
She said Perry said made “tangible efforts” steps to rehabilitate herself, including seeing a psychologist and self-referring to a local substance abuse support service.
She also wrote an apology letter to the court.
“She does have an insight about what the drugs do to the community and what the drugs have done to her,” Ms Logan said.
Judge James Henry said Ms Perry’s trafficking charge was a “novel” one.
“With the exception of a couple of isolated minor sales to others, you had but one customer for your trafficking business,” Justice Henry said.
“Because (the case) is so unusual, it carries less utility as a vehicle for general deterrence for prospective traffickers, they generally being offenders who trade to a range of customers.
“(The events in your childhood) have left you perhaps less well equipped than an average person to handle the slings and arrows and stress rules of life, so that as a result … you were more prone than average to exercise poor judgement when presented with the temptation of criminal offending.
“In that sense, the factors highlighted in the report have an indirect causal influence on your offending.”
Justice Henry said recent pathology tests also supported the assertion Ms Perry had stopped drugs, and said a number of workplace references were “very positive”.
Justice Henry sentenced Ms Perry to five years imprisonment for the charge of trafficking in a dangerous drug, suspended after twelve months.
Convictions were recorded.
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Originally published as Shanesse May Perry, 32, jailed for cocaine trafficking
