Noble Park North dope dealing dad says cannabis cash came from ‘investments’
When police found $11k in a Noble Park North convicted dealer’s home he said it was cash from his ‘investment properties’ But cops knew better.
South East
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A dope dealer nabbed with nearly a kilo of cannabis, deal bags and $11k in cash reckoned the drugs were for his own use and the money was from his “investment properties”.
When Steven Edward Zammit’s Noble Park North house was raided by drug detectives they uncovered a mountain of marijuana in snap lock bags scattered around the house and large amounts of cash in his bedroom.
Yet the 55-year-old father tried to tell cops the money was his savings he had accrued from rentals he owned and that he intended to smoke all the pot himself.
But he didn’t have any answers when they found his DNA all over dozens of deal bags.
He pleaded guilty to one charge of trafficking at the online Dandenong Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday.
The court heard cops weren’t originally targeting Zammit when they conducted the December 2019 raid but soon turned their attention to him after they found a cash stash in his bedroom.
When they searched the rest of the house they discovered a total of 817g of dope hidden in deal bags secreted in locations including in the washing machine and inside the garage.
This was the third time Zammit had been pinged for trafficking cannabis, with his other offending dating back to 2007 and 2004.
His defence lawyer said he did have rental properties he owned that he had funded through a worker’s comp payout many years ago.
He said his client had been a regular pot smoker for many years due to help him cope with depression and longstanding physical injuries.
He said he was a carer for his elderly mother, and would rather pay a fine and do a community corrections order and undertake addiction treatment than be jailed.
Magistrate Tony Burns said Zammit needed to get off the drugs, and even though this wasn’t his first trafficking crime, the other two were quite old.
“This would be third time unlucky,” Mr Burns said.
Zammit was convicted and fined $5000, and sent to be assessed for an 18-month community corrections order with drug treatment conditions.
He also lost all of his “investment” cash, which was forfeited to the Crown, and the cannabis will be destroyed.
