A DRUG dealer will spend up to three-and-a-half years behind bars for supplying more than 150g of the drug ice.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Jason Luke Ritchie was jailed in Tamworth District Court for the deemed supply of the drug after he was found with 152g of methylamphetamine it in a car stop near Nundle in 2017.
Ritchie, who has lost more than 30kg since he was arrested in September, last year, due to a myriad of health problems while in custody.
He pleaded guilty to the charge – possessing half the commercial quantity of the drug in July, last year, after he was intercepted in a vehicle he was travelling in.
Ritchie’s dealing cam undone after the police operation, code-named Strike Force Delaney, was revealed in September, 2017, by a series of arrests.
The operation was launched by Oxley detectives and the Tamworth Target Action Group and homed in on the rodeo circling circuit.
SEE MORE:
Judge Jeffery McLennan found special circumstances for Ritchie’s first time in custody and imposed a minimum of two years in custody.
In a sentencing hearing, he found Ritchie’s conduct in the car stop “wasn’t an isolated incident”, but rather he was part of a “planned enterprise” for the drug deal on July 11.
Judge McLennan earlier told the court, Ritchie’s actions were “planned” and he could be "properly described [as a] right-hand man".
He said it was clear the 26-year-old “got involved in this purely for financial gain".
He went around and got the money ... then the deal goes down.
- Judge Jeffery McLennan
“He went around and got the money ... then the deal goes down," he told the court in the hearing.
”Without the money there wouldn't have been a deal."
Ritchie, who took the stand to give evidence for his sentencing, said he initially resisted attempts to get involved in the supply of drugs but a need to put food on the table changed that.
"I think I might have declined again ... for the same reasons ... eventually when I was asked again, I accepted,” he said on the stand.
The court was told Ritchie’s dire financial situation – after he lost his job and his Centrelink payments stopped – “was the primary motivation for his conduct".
"I needed help,” he said.
"I needed some money, I needed to have food in the house."
After time served, he will be eligible for parole in September, 2019.