A man who was found with up to $40,000 of illicit drugs at a Dunedin gig has been jailed for 22 months.
Corey Anthony Breen (24) was among the 15,000 at Forsyth Barr Stadium attending a Six60 concert on March 9.
Police were alerted to a fight on the grass area near the bar and spotted Breen throwing punches.
When he was arrested, officers noted the defendant’s friends were showing an unusual interest in securing the man’s black Louis Vuitton shoulder bag.
A quick search revealed why.
Inside were resealable plastic bags containing cannabis and, more significantly, six perforated cards featuring a total of 992 tabs.
Police originally thought the substance was LSD but analysis of it showed it was an amphetamine analogue.
Had the tabs been sold as acid, Breen could have raked in between $30,000 and $40,000, court documents said.
Also in the bag was a King Cobra’s gang ring.
While Breen was last year sentenced to two months’ imprisonment for possessing cannabis and breaching parole, the possession of the class-C analogue for supply was dealt with yesterday.
Defence counsel Andrew Dawson said his client had spent the past 10 months behind bars and had reflected seriously on the harm drugs could cause. Breen was not a heavy drug user at the time of last year’s offending but had been. Mr Dawson stressed the defendant was relatively young and wanted to break away from the crime and gang lifestyle to become a personal trainer.
A pre-sentence report assessed Breen’s risk of reoffending was very high and Judge Michael Turner noted the most recent offending had come just a couple of months after his release from another prison stint.
In 2012, as a 17-year-old, Breen was sentenced to home detention for the aggravated robbery of an Oamaru dairy for then-legal herbal highs, committed with his brother.
He ended up jailed because — while serving that sentence — he smashed his electronic-monitoring bracelet, stole two bottles of liquor from a local store, then assaulted a police officer who tried to arrest him.
