Parole denied over drug-buy rort

A Dunedin Mongrel Mob member who used $20,000 of government money to fund a cannabis-dealing operation has been denied parole.

Korrey Teeati Cook (40), was sentenced to six years, nine months' jail in 2012 for conspiring to deal in cannabis, possession of cannabis for supply, criminal breaches of trust, injuring with intent and common assault.

Cook was one of four Dunedin Mongrel Mob Notorious gang members involved with the We Against Violence Trust, which received $56,000 through the Government's Whanau Ora programme between July 2011 and April 2012.

Cook used $20,000 of the money to buy cannabis, which he and his associates were planning to sell.

In a Parole Board decision released today, a psychologist involved in Cook's special treatment unit rehabilitation programme said his risk for offending remained ''high''.

Decision documents said Cook's ''treatment needs remain and risk is still high''.

''We have not been able to determine that risk is anything other than undue at this point. Mr Cook has a lengthy and versatile offending history.

''Parole today is declined.''

Cook became a Mongrel Mob member at age 16 but ceased his involvement with the gang in 2000, which coincided with a decline in offending, the documents said.

Cook told the board at his May 13 hearing, he rejoined the mob with ''good intentions'' in 2011 but within five months was the regional president of his chapter.

He narrowly escaped imprisonment for drug offending in 2009, a High Court judge giving him home detention in the hope it would assist his rehabilitation.

At the time of the 2012 offending, Cook was on bail for charges involving serious violence for which he was jailed for two years and nine months in August.

In November 2012, he was sentenced to four years' imprisonment - three years and three months on the cannabis charges, and an additional nine months for the criminal breach of trust.

The four-year term was added to the two years and nine months of his present sentence, taking the total prison time to six years and nine months.

 

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