STATE OF TASMANIA v JORDYN LEA FENTON 20 MARCH 2020
EDITED COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE PEARCE J
Jordyn Fenton, you plead guilty to dealing with property suspected of being the proceeds of crime. During the afternoon of Wednesday 13 November 2019 the police searched your home in Mowbray where they found a backpack under a chair in a bedroom containing a total of $125,771.90 in cash in purses and a supermarket bag. When asked who the money belonged to you claimed it was yours. That was not true. For about three months you had, from time to time, been given large sums of money to look after by a male with whom you were in a sexual relationship. He was one of your employers at a hotel in which you had been asked by him to work as bar manager. During the relevant period you delivered significant amounts to him as and when he requested it. The money found by the police was the amount in your possession at that time. By possessing it you were dealing with it. When interviewed by police on the day after the search you admitted that you believed, from what you had heard about the male and from the amounts involved, that the money was the proceeds of drug sales. Your belief was on reasonable grounds and it was correct.
You are now 26. You have no relevant prior convictions. You have a supportive mother and a good employment history including working for many years in the aged and disability sector as a carer. You were well regarded in that position. It is yet to be determined whether this conviction will affect your ability to return to work of that sort, but I would not see, at least on the information available to me, that you pose any risk to persons you would be required to care for. It is not asserted that you played any part, or wished to play any part, in the drug transactions from which the money was derived, other than to hold and deliver the money as requested by the male. I accept that your original claim to the police that the money was yours was made because you were scared, that you acted as you did as a result of the influence of the male, and that you likely felt no alternative but to comply. It is a strong factor in your favour that you pleaded guilty on your very first appearance in court.
The conduct you engaged in is wrong because, by agreeing to hold the money, you facilitated the criminal conduct which produced it and you assisted the perpetrator to attempt to hide his criminal conduct so as to avoid apprehension and punishment. Even if it may have been difficult, and though you were used and manipulated, your duty was to refuse. Because the amount of cash was so large, and because it was so obviously proceeds of crime, a sentence of imprisonment is required. However, in all of the circumstances, including your admissions, your early plea and the absence of prior convictions, I will wholly suspend the sentence.
You must understand that suspended sentences are generally a last chance. If you re-offend in any serious way while the suspended sentence is in force it is likely you will be required to serve it. The money will be forfeited because I am satisfied that it is proceeds of crime and no hardship will arise from its forfeiture.
Jordyn Fenton, you are convicted on count 3 on complaint 36044/19. Pursuant to s 11(1)(a) and s 16 of the Crime (Confiscation of Profits) Act 1993 I order that the sum of $125,771.80 seized by the police on 13 November 2019 is forfeited to the State. You are sentenced to imprisonment for 10 months. I suspend all of that term for two years from today. It is a condition of that sentence that during the period the order is in force you do not commit any offence punishable by imprisonment. If you breach that condition the Court must activate the term unless that is unjust.