Atousa Amouzegar Haghighi fronts court on serious drugs charges
The girlfriend of accused drug-dealing Melbourne lawyer Anthony Grant is back in court after been bailed to a rehabilitation centre charging $350 per day.
Inner South
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The girlfriend of accused drug-dealing lawyer Anthony Grant who had been bailed to a $350 a day drug rehabilitation centre in Geelong is back in court after alleged drug trafficking.
A tearful Atousa Amouzegar Haghighi appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court for mention on Thursday, again seeking bail, but was told to wait until Monday next week for a bail hearing.
The 34-year-old Iranian woman is facing three counts of trafficking a commercial quantity of drugs, three of possessing illicit drugs, possessing hallucinogenics, possessing a schedule 4 poison, handling stolen goods and possessing ID information.
The court heard on Thursday that Ms Haghighi was taken into custody over the weekend and that a bail hearing was set down for Monday next week.
Her boyfriend and former state prosecutor Mr Grant, 44, is facing 13 charges including trafficking a commercial quantity of 1,4-Butanediol and possessing drugs including methamphetamine, cocaine, ecstasy and ketamine.
He’s in custody and will reappear on March 4.
The charges followed a raid on his Queens Rd apartment on August 8, 2024 when police allegedly uncovered 12 litres of 1,4- Butanediol – used as a source for GHB – 355 tablets and 322 jelly packs of the erectile dysfunction medicine Sildenafil, sold as Viagra, illicit drugs and a prosthetic penis, which can be used to falsify urine drug tests.
Mr Grant and Ms Haghighi have been in a relationship since December 2023 after he represented her in court on meth trafficking charges which were laid a month earlier.
In September 2024, she was released on bail to private Geelong drug rehabilitation centre Habitat Therapeutics which the court heard costs $31,000 for a 90-day live-in program and would primarily be paid by her private health insurance.
Her lawyer Brodie Romensky told the court on Thursday that he was ready to proceed with bail application but since the matter was listed for mention only, Ms Haghighi would need to wait until Monday.
Mr Grant previously worked for the Office of Public Prosecutions and in 2014 won a Federal Circuit Court battle over his sacking, claiming it came about because of mental illness. The court ordered he be reinstated and paid $93,750 in compensation.
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