STATE OF TASMANIA v MADELON LILI PACE 20 MAY 2025
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE PEARCE J
Madelon Pace, you plead guilty to one count of trafficking in a controlled substance. I also agreed to deal with related summary charges to which you have also pleaded guilty. You were apprehended on 30 July 2024 having, over the previous two weeks, imported into Tasmania significant quantities of methylamphetamine and 1,4-butanediol, also called liquid G. However, following your arrest, the police investigation revealed that since at least September 2023 you had, between Launceston and Melbourne, been in the business of the sale and distribution of those drugs in a continuous and systematic way.
The events which led to your arrest were these. On 17 July 2024 you flew to Melbourne under a false name, thereby committing a flight offence under the Commonwealth Criminal Code, s 376.4(2). In Melbourne you purchased methylamphetamine and packed it into two cryovac bags which you concealed in a coffee machine. Under a different false name, you then sent the machine to yourself by parcel post to a transport depot in Tasmania. The parcel was intercepted by the police. The methylamphetamine, a total of 306.31 grams, was removed and replaced with an inert substance but then left for delivery. On 21 July 2024 you flew back to Launceston with a further 28 grams of methylamphetamine. The following day you collected the machine. You returned to Melbourne on 23 July 2024 where you packaged another 112 grams of methylamphetamine and two litres of liquid G into four express post bags. You mailed these bags to yourself to parcel lockers in Tasmania which you collected after you returned to Tasmania on 29 July 2024.
The home in which you lived in Launceston was searched on 30 July 2024. The police found illicit drugs and other evidence of trafficking. You later admitted having used methylamphetamine the day before and 1,4-butanediol earlier on the day of the search and you plead guilty to using those drugs. Two Ice pipes were also found. Your mobile phone was seized and examined. It disclosed numerous text messages commencing on 26 September 2013 and continuing regularly throughout the intervening period which revealed the extent of your purchase, importation and sale of methylamphetamine and Liquid G. The phone had a number of applications including encrypted applications such as Wikr, signal and Threema by means of which you organised transactions. The State asserts without dispute that during that period of about 10 months there was direct evidence that you imported 582.15 grams of methylamphetamine and three litres of liquid G into Tasmania. During that period you regularly sold methylamphetamine both in Tasmania and in Melbourne. Messages on your phone disclosed sales or attempted sales totalling 343.5 grams of methylamphetamine and more than 20 litres of liquid G. The sales varied from small quantities obviously for personal use to larger quantities more likely for resale. In addition to the particular sales discovered on your phone, you also regularly sold methylamphetamine and liquid G to other customers in Tasmania and Melbourne in unknown amounts, supplied the drug to associates to have them sell on your behalf, and allowed customers to purchase on credit, called “tick”.
Your bank records revealed deposits into your accounts at two banks between 29 December 2023 and 31 July 2024 totalling $77,357.94. You held other accounts in your name at other banks and other accounts in false names but the records for those accounts were not obtained. Depending on the quantities in which it was sold, the methylamphetamine you imported into Tasmania was worth between about $65,000 and almost $600,000. The liquid G sold for less and had an estimated value of $12,300. The full value of all of the sales cannot be established.
You are now aged 24. You completed year 10 at school and were industrious and hardworking. You did not get into any trouble until 2019 when your boyfriend at the time introduced you to methylamphetamine and you became addicted. You have no prior convictions for trafficking but a poor criminal record since then in other respects which is strongly related to your addiction. You spent time in custody in 2019 and in 2021. This crime, in substantial part, arose from the need for money to purchase methylamphetamine for yourself, but that does not explain the eventual scale of it which escalated over the offending period. The quantities you bought and sold gradually increased and the greatest amount was in the two weeks immediately before your apprehension. There was, however, no sign of unexplained wealth or an extravagant lifestyle. You were spending money as well as receiving it. You remained living with your mother and despite your criminal activity you still have a drug debt of your own.
Regrettably your mother is very ill. There is a chance that she may die while you are in custody. I take that into account but it is a situation largely of your own making.
The reasons that drug trafficking is so serious have been explained many times. Methylamphetamine is a drug which is prevalent. Its use and trade causes grave damage to the health of users and great harm, both directly and indirectly, to the community. In general, sale motivated purely by profit is regarded as more serious than trafficking to fund addiction. Yours was a combination of both. In either case the damage caused is the same. Ironically, despite your own addiction, you were unable to resist sale of a drug which fostered and encouraged addiction in others, thus subjecting them to the same terrible situation you found yourself in. Your trafficking was of a scale and nature which warrants a substantial term of imprisonment.
There are some factors in your favour. You made many admissions to the police and entered early pleas of guilty. You remain a relatively young person and, if you show the resolve to successfully address your addiction, all chance of rehabilitation is not lost. I will allow the earliest opportunity for parole and order some concurrency of sentences. To take account of the period you have already been in custody the sentence will commence on 20 August 2024.
Madelon Pace, I order that items 1, 2, 2A, 2B, 3, 3A and 3 B on the drug exhibit sheet dated 19 July 2024 and items 1 to 10 and 13 to 17 inclusive on the property seizure record be forfeited to the State. I assess, in accordance with the Crime (Confiscation of Profits) Act 1993, s 22, the value of the benefits derived by you from the commission of the offence in the sum of $77,357.94 and order that you pay to the State a pecuniary penalty equal to that sum. You have 28 days from your release to pay that sum although you may enter into a repayment arrangement.
You are convicted on complaint 34041/24, count 4, using methylamphetamine, count 5, using 1,4-butanediol and count 6, possessing the Ice pipes. On that complaint, in light of the sentence I am about to impose, I make no further order. The remaining counts on that complaint are subsumed in the indictment. You are convicted on the indictment and on complaint 34037/24, the Commonwealth flight offence. For that flight offence you are sentenced to imprisonment for three months from 20 August 2024. On the indictment you are convicted and sentenced to a term of imprisonment of two years and nine months also from 20 August 2024. I order that you not be eligible for parole until you have served half of that term.