Luke Scholze: Court rejects appeal by drug-dealing Townsville business owner

A formerly respected Townsville father and business owner has failed in a bid to overturn a conviction related to dealing drugs and investing the money in Bitcoin.

Townsville business owner Luke Robert Scholze was found guilty by a jury of dealing with money or other property proceeds of crime by laundering more than $100,000. Picture: Supplied

A formerly respected Townsville father and business owner has failed in a bid to overturn a conviction related to dealing drugs and investing the money in Bitcoin.

Luke Robert Scholze, the owner of a mechanical business since 2018, was found guilty by a jury in the Townsville District Court in early 2024 of dealing with money that was the proceeds of crime, a figure in excess of $100,000, and sentenced to four years’ jail with a non-parole period of 18 months.

Scholze appealed against his conviction in the Court of Appeal in Brisbane.

In a written decision, the court said the businessman was relying on two grounds.

“First, that the verdict is unreasonable and cannot be supported having regard to the evidence,” the court wrote of Scholze’s appeal.

“Second, that a miscarriage of justice occurred because the trial judge rejected an application that the appellant had no case to answer.”

Luke Robert Scholze opened a mechanics business in Townsville in 2018.

According to the ruling, the indictment alleged that between April and October 2020, Scholze dealt with “money or other property that was, and that he believed to be, proceeds of crime and at the time the value of the money, or other property, was $100,000 or more.”

The written ruling outlined the facts on the case, including details about two police raids on the appellant’s home, including on October 18, 2020.

It said that police found a cryovac bag containing 455 grams of cannabis in the dresser drawer in the master bedroom, 222 grams of cannabis in a kitchen cupboard and 898 grams of cannabis in a parcel in a “children’s bedroom set of drawers”.

In the second police search on October, 2020, Scholze’s mobile phone was seized with screenshots taken of its contents.

Queensland Supreme Court Judge Justice Debra Mullins. Picture: Supplied

The ruling from judges Debra Mullins, David Boddice and Peter Davis noted the extensive police investigation also involved the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) to seek to show “that the cash deposited by the appellant did not come from his legitimate work personal accounts”.

The services of a financial analyst were also employed.

The judges noted that during the summing up of the Townsville trial, Judge John Coker directed the jury that the case “relied on circumstantial evidence”.

He said that in reaching its decision, the jury needed to be “satisfied that guilt was the only rational inference that could be drawn from the evidence as a whole”.

“If there was any reasonable possibility consistent with innocence, it was their duty to find the defendant not guilty.”

In the lengthy ruling, the Appeal Court found that the jury’s guilty verdict was “not unreasonable” and rejected the defence’s argument that there was no case to answer.

Originally published as Luke Scholze: Court rejects appeal by drug-dealing Townsville business owner