A Tasmanian drug dealer had ‘just started’ selling cocaine when he was found with close to $20,000 in cash and almost 100 grams of the drug at a Midlands roadhouse, a court has heard.
Then 23-year-old Stephan Hrvojevic was caught out after a police search of his car at a roadhouse near Kempton in November 2021, where they found $19,700 in cash in a shopping bag, 83.55 grams of cocaine in a snap-lock bag and 13.24 grams of cocaine in a fabric pouch.
In an interview with police after the bust, Hrvojevic admitted that he had “recently started selling cocaine”, which he acquired from an unidentified source, in smaller quantities to friends though he “claimed to not make much money from it”.
In his passing comments on the recent sentence, Justice Pearce said Hrvojevic’s operation, while “significant”, was “not a large scale commercial enterprise” and was driven by financial pressure as he was building a house and needed to pay the mortgage.
“You are not a drug user and so your crime was motivated solely by a wish to make money to maintain your lifestyle,” Justice Pearce said.
“Instead of making sacrifices in other respects you decided to sell drugs to make extra money.”
Justice Pearce noted that only $4,700 of the $19,000 cash he was found with was drug money, while the rest was intended to buy a motorcycle in Hobart.
The cocaine, sold as he was selling it, was worth “in excess of $30,000”.
Despite a previous criminal conviction for trafficking MDMA in 2018, Hrvojevic, now 25 years old and living with his parents in Longford, is considered a respected worker in his job as a painter and blaster who consistently passed all drug tests.
Justice Pearce said that while his crimes were serious, he would not order home detention because it would ‘cost him his job’, which is located in Savage River where “electronic monitoring is not possible”, and “would be contrary to the overall community interests”.
“A reasonable person could have been left in no doubt of the seriousness of what you had done or the type of risk you took by deciding to sell drugs again, but apparently, for you, the message did not sink in.”
“With some hesitation I have decided to offer you a further opportunity to avoid actual imprisonment.”
He convicted Hrvojevic on both counts of trafficking in a controlled substance and dealing with property suspected of being the proceeds of crime and forfeited $4,700 to the State, along with an iPhone.
Hrvojevic was sentenced to 12 months in prison, wholly suspended for two years, with conditions that he does not commit any imprisonable offence and that he performs 240 hours of community service within two years.
