STATE OF TASMANIA v KELLIE MAREE RHODES 16 AUGUST 2023
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE ESTCOURT J
On 24 May 2023, the defendant was found guilty by a jury of one count of trafficking in a controlled substance, namely methylamphetamine, between 21 June 2020 and 9 July 2020, contrary to s 12 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 2001. And she has pleaded guilty to a second count of trafficking in methylamphetamine between 2 July 2021 and 22 September 2021, notably while she was on bail for the first charge of trafficking. In addition I have agreed, pursuant to s 385 of the Code, to deal with summary drug and firearm offences set out in charges 2,3,4,5 and 6 on complaint 7429 of 2021, the facts of which are set out in the statement of facts. I have accepted pleas of guilty to those charges through counsel.
As to the first of the trafficking charges, the State asserts that it follows from the jury verdict that for the whole, or a significant period of the indictment, the defendant was conducting an organised drug business of a commercial and systematic kind involving the importation and sale of a significant quantity of methylamphetamine.
The State asserts that the jury’s verdict is consistent with the activities of the defendant’s drug trafficking business including the following:
- Engaging another person to travel to Melbourne on 22 June 2020 to collect 990 grams of methylamphetamine, intended for sale, from the defendant’s drug supplier and to send it to the defendant via Australia Post;
- Engaging another person to act as a courier to import 476.4 grams of methylamphetamine into Tasmania via the Spirit of Tasmania on 9 July 2020, which was intended for later sale, and travelling to Melbourne with that person between 5 and 9 July 2020 to purchase that amount of methylamphetamine and then assisting in packaging the drug prior to its importation;
- Between 30 June and 1 July 2020, arranging for the purchase of an ounce of methylamphetamine from a local drug supplier;
- Between 21 June 2020 and 9 July 2020, selling and/or directing others to sell methylamphetamine from her home in Goodwood, which she operated as a retail front for her customers.
I accept that submission. I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that, whilst others were involved in the defendant’s drug trafficking business, it was her business and it was controlled by her, or at the very least she was the senior partner in the business.
As to the second count of trafficking, the defendant was again operating her drug business from her home in Goodwood, which operated as a retail front for her customers. She was responsible for sourcing large quantities of methylamphetamine from drug suppliers within Tasmania and selling various quantities to a large number of drug customers. The defendant received text messages and phone calls almost every day of the three month period from her customers requesting methylamphetamine, or from persons who could supply her with that drug for sale. An examination of the defendant’s mobile phone, seized during a police search, indicated that the defendant was using encrypted messaging to organise the sale of drugs.
The defendant relied on and was assisted in her business by two main associates, Lisa Harwood and Joshua Barda, who received instructions and direction from the defendant about the operation of the drug business and were involved in the delivery and sale of methylamphetamine. In some instances, Ms Harwood and Mr Barda used the defendant’s mobile phone to make and receive calls from drug customers or suppliers, at the defendant’s direction.
On 22nd September 2021 police executed a search warrant at the defendant’s Goodwood house and an Ice pipe was located in the main bedroom, that is Count 6 on Complaint number 7429/21. Also located was a .410 calibre Mossberg bolt action repeating sawn-off shotgun, 1 x .22 round and 5 x .410 calibre shotgun cartridges, as well as an empty .22 magazine, a .22 calibre Stirling self-loading sawn-off rifle, 90 x .22 rounds of ammunition, 2 x 12 gauge shotgun cartridges and 6 x .410 cartridges. The firearms were classified as a “pistol” and the defendant was not, and has never been, the holder of a firearms licence, and they are Counts 2, 3 & 4 on Complaint number 7429/21.
Count 5 on that complaint was an occasion when the defendant was intercepted by police with $1,000 in $50 notes in her pocket and falsely identified herself as Natasha Carr and told police that she was on her way to hospital.
I accept the State’s submission that the matters for which the defendant has been found guilty at trial and to which she has pleaded guilty, represent very serious instances of trafficking. The objective seriousness of the offending for both matters is high, particularly having regard to the systematic, commercial and continuous nature of the trafficking business during the periods of the indictments.
Despite their combined duration being relatively short – 15 weeks in total – their scale of the drug business was significant, operating almost every day in that period and the operation of both businesses was aimed at the generation of large profits, given the quantities of methylamphetamine purchased wholesale and the significant number of retail customers the defendant serviced.
The State is unable to accurately quantify the weight of methylamphetamine that was sold by the defendant or the income that was received by the drug business. However, had all of the methylamphetamine imported by the accused on 24 June 2020 and 9 July 2020 been sold, the street value would have been between $1,466,399 and $2,199,600 depending on how it was sold. In addition, the calculable income from the defendant’s 2021 business was between $174,428 and $305,250.
The value of the methylamphetamine involved is clearly significant, it could have generated an income in the vicinity of $2.5 million.
Most of the defendant’s drug customers paid her, Mr Barda and Ms Harwood in cash for the methylamphetamine. However, some of her customers paid by electronic transfer to the defendant’s Westpac Bank account. Between 5 July 2021 and 21 September 2021, she received $31,440 from her drug customers. Also, between 2 July 2021 and 6 September 2021 Mr Barda and Ms Harwood deposited $3,110 into that Westpac bank account. The total of the account was therefore $34,550.
The State makes application pursuant to s 36B of the Misuse of Drugs Act 2001 that the accused pay the costs of the drug analysis being $1,578.25. I so order.
The State also makes application pursuant to s 11(1)(a) of the Crime (Confiscation of Profits) Act 1993 for an order pursuant to s16 of that Act, that the $28,220 found at the defendant’s home on 24 June 2020, be forfeited as tainted property, being the proceeds of drug trafficking. I so order.
The State makes a further application, pursuant to s 11(1)(a) of the Crime (Confiscation of Profits) Act, for an order pursuant to s16 of that Act, that the $850 seized by Tasmania Police from the defendant’s hand bag on 9 July 2020 be forfeited as tainted property, being the proceeds of drug trafficking. I order accordingly.
The State makes a further application, pursuant to s 11(1)(a) of the Crime (Confiscation of Profits) Act, for an order pursuant to s16 of that Act, that the Holden Commodore station wagon, registration number XC 689, seized by Tasmania Police on 9 July 2020, be forfeited on the basis that it is tainted property, being an instrument of crime used by the defendant to import methylamphetamine into Tasmania. For the purposes of s 16(4) of the Act, the State asserts that the value of the property is $6,000. I so order.
The State makes application pursuant to s 11(1)(a) of the Crime (Confiscation of Profits) Act for an order pursuant to s16 of that Act that the black Mercedes Benz, CLA Sport Coupe, VIN number WDD1173512N481874, seized by Tasmania Police on 9 July 2020 be forfeited to the State of Tasmania on the basis that it is tainted property, being property that was derived, directly or indirectly by Ms Rhodes from drug trafficking. For the purposes of s 16(4) of the Act, the value of the property is $51,000. I so order.
The State makes application pursuant to s 11(1)(a) of the Crime (Confiscation of Profits) Act for an order pursuant to s16 of that Act that the Louis Vuitton wallet, zippered pouch and sunglasses seized by Tasmania Police on 9 July 2020 be forfeited to the State of Tasmania as tainted property, being property that was derived directly or indirectly from drug trafficking. For the purposes of s 16(4) of the Act, the value of the property is $5,620. I order accordingly.
In relation to all three applications for forfeiture outlined above, leave of the Court is granted for the State, or a person authorised on behalf of the State, to dispose of or otherwise deal with the property at the end of any relevant appeal period upon notice being provided to the Attorney General, and any third parties who may claim an interest in the property.
In relation to the second charge of trafficking the State makes application pursuant to s 11(1)(b) of the Crime (Confiscation of Profits) Act for an order pursuant to s 21(1) of that Act that the accused pay a pecuniary penalty of $34,550 to the State of Tasmania, representing the value of quantifiable benefits derived from the commission of this offence in the form of monies paid in to the defendant’s Westpac bank account. I assess the relevant benefit in the sum of $34,550 and make a pecuniary penalty order in that sum.
Pursuant to s 38 of the Misuse of Drugs Act, the State seeks forfeiture of the following items on the Property Seizure Record dated 22 September 2021, namely items 5, 38b, 38d, 38e, 38f, 39a, 39b-i and 39f. I so order.
Finally, the State makes application pursuant to s 36B of the Misuse of Drugs Act 2001 that the accused pay the costs of the drug analysis, being $197. I so order.
The defendant is now 40 years of age. She had an unremarkable upbringing and married at age 18. Initially, she describes the marriage as having been good. She and her husband purchased a house together and she was employed. They had three children together, they are now aged 20, 16 and 14.
As the relationship progressed, however, it became marred by family violence. The most significant event that the defendant describes is when both of her front teeth were knocked out by her husband. She also describes various levels of abuse, apart from actual physical violence, including being ostracised from her friends and family.
Eventually, she was able to leave the relationship. At that point in time her husband took all of her savings and left her with very little support. She was trying to deal with the breakup of her relationship as well as the trauma associated with it, and she started to associate with a group of former acquaintances. Unfortunately they were people who used drugs, and the defendant accepted drugs offered to her by them. Thus from the age of 30 the defendant was using methylamphetamine on a regular basis and inevitably developed an addiction. She lived something of a double life as she hid this as she continued to raise her family.
The defendant describes being dragged further and further into a culture of drug use, meeting people of the worst kind and becoming more and more entrenched in the drug scene to the point where she owed money for drugs and was led into funding her own habit and paying her debts by selling methylamphetamine.
In terms of the defendant’s future, she has been employed in the prison kitchen while she has been in custody and has found the work rewarding. She still maintains a close relationship with her children, despite her incarceration. After release from custody, she states that she wants to leave her former life behind, and in this regard, since she has been in custody, she has been able to break her addiction.
Apart from the defendant’s pleas of guilty, there is little that can be said in mitigation on her behalf. In addition to driving and dishonesty matters, the defendant has many relevant prior convictions for summary drug matters in 2018 and in 2020 where an application to breach a suspended sentence imposed was granted but no order made, and again in 2022 where a one month suspended sentence of imprisonment was imposed.
I accept the submission made by counsel for the State, Ms Wilson, that in this case personal deterrence is of importance because the defendant committed the second trafficking offence whilst she was on bail for the 2020 trafficking matter. This is, of course, an aggravating feature.
Important also is general deterrence. Methylamphetamine is an insidious drug and its supply and use destroy those who use it and the community at large, whose members are preyed upon by addicts desperate to do anything to acquire money to feed their addiction. To paraphrase what other members of this Court have said, a drug trafficker, either chooses to ignore the prospect of harm, or put his or her own interests and profiteering ahead of that harm. Such conduct demands denunciation and a heavy penalty to deter others.
The defendant is convicted of all crimes and offences to which she has been found guilty or pleaded guilty and I impose a single sentence of 10 years imprisonment, backdated to 6 July 2022. The defendant is not to be eligible for parole until she has served 5 years of that sentence.