Former Liberal leader Kerry Chikarovski sobbed as her son Mark Chikarovski avoided jail for running a dark web drug supply business from his eastern suburbs home.
The 38-year-old, who has been in prison on remand since his arrest in May last year, was on Friday sentenced to a 35-month intensive corrections order to be served in the community. Of that, 18 months is to be served as home detention.
Chikarovski walked out of the Downing Centre on Friday afternoon accompanied by his mother. He declined to answer reporters’ questions
His lavish lifestyle put him on investigators’ radar in 2023. Police watched for months as Chikarovski, under the username of “AusCokeKing”, sold drugs to users across the country, utilising the dark net’s Abacus Market and various post offices across the eastern suburbs.
Chikarovski was caught stuffing drugs into an envelope when specialist police burst into his home in May last year. He was charged with a slew of drug supply offences and dealing with the proceeds of crime.
He also forfeited $1.44 million to the Crime Commission.
Mark Chikarovski with his mother, Kerry.Credit:
Chikarovski was motivated by “greed”, the prosecutor told the court on Friday, citing his children’s private education, the purchase of an $11.5 million home in Vaucluse and luxury cars.
“He could’ve downsized, sent daughters to local public school, not gone ahead with the renovations.
“Instead of doing any of those things, he chose… to sell [drugs] using the dark web,” she said.
His barrister Philip Boulton, SC, told the court that Chikarovski had taken to selling drugs to cover his own drug debts.
Former NSW opposition leader Kerry Chikarovski leaves court with her son’s solicitor, Bryan Wrench, in November.Credit: Dylan Coker
“He is truly sorry, very regretful.”
Chikarovski’s wife and children have moved overseas, the court heard, because of bullying resulting from media coverage.
Chikarovski’s dysfunctional childhood and the pressure of life in the public eye were laid bare before the court during sentencing hearings last month, which heard that he turned to drugs to cope.
His mother led the NSW Liberal Party from 1999 to 2002 as the state’s first female opposition leader.
Boulton described his arrest as a “cathartic experience”.
Chikarovski was arrested at his eastern suburbs home in May 2023.Credit: NSW Police
“It’s involved explaining things he’s had bottled up since childhood,” he told the court in November, noting that his was “not a normal family”.
“He’s had a history of being picked on at school due to the high profile of the Chikarovski name,” Boulton said.
Court documents seen by the Herald say that from February 6, 2023, until his arrest on May 18 that year, Chikarovski supplied or possessed for the purposes of supply 209.06 grams of MDMA, 167.4 grams of cocaine, 44.05 grams of meth, 135.38 grams of ketamine, and 300 tablets of dexamphetamine.
His undoing came early last year, when he sold “premium grade cocaine”, “premium imported European MDMA” and “limited edition meth” across 18 different transactions to an undercover police officer.
Chikarovski was the only person arrested by the taskforce, who said he was running a one-stop drug supply shop, packing orders himself, then posting a huge volume of small orders from post offices across Sydney’s east.
Investigators do not know where Chikarovski sourced the drugs.
He is to report to Community Corrections on Monday.
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