After selling cocaine to fuel her $1000-a-day drug habit and photographing her criminal activity, a Sydney woman has been urged to study so she can help addicts upon release from prison.
Alexandra Moss, 28, was jailed for a maximum of four years and four months after dealing illicit drugs out of her one-bedroom rented unit in Rose Bay in March and April 2021.
She was sentenced at Downing Centre District Court on Friday after pleading guilty to one count of supplying a large commercial quantity of a prohibited drug, namely 25 litres of gamma-butyrolactone, or GBL.
She also pleaded guilty to one count of supplying cocaine and asked the court to take four other offences into account.
They included three drug-related offences for possess and supply and one count of dealing with $1200 in the proceeds of crime, which she had to forfeit to the state.
Judge John Pickering imposed a non-parole period of 23 months, backdated to January 2023. Her full sentence will expire in May 2027.
Rehab stint pays off
Judge Pickering allowed a discount for her early guilty pleas and took into account progress she had made in drug rehabilitation while out on bail.
“It is always an admirable thing … when someone successfully completes that treatment. And indeed, that is exactly what Ms Moss has done,” he said.
He also reduced the non-parole period because of mental health issues, including ADHD, anxiety and depression, and urged the Tweed Heads woman to continue studying criminology so she could become a case worker for drug addicts after her release.
“Before Christmas next year, you can get out, have that degree finished and get on with your life,” Judge Pickering told Moss.
Giving evidence in court, Moss said she regretted and understood the harm of her actions.
“I feel ashamed, I feel disgraced, and I feel very disappointed in myself for my behaviour.”
She broke down in tears as the sentence was read out, and kissed her family goodbye before being led off by correctional officers.
Moss was introduced to cocaine aged 17 by two doctors she worked for in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. Her life subsequently went on a “downward spiral”, Judge Pickering said.
The judge found the cocaine dealing was the more serious of the two offences.
Moss was “naive” about the GBL, which she said had been ordered by her former friend Chris Cao, who has also been sentenced over the conduct.
“She knew she had a valuable asset but she didn’t know how to realise it. In fact, she didn’t even know how to get it out of the container,” the judge said.
The substance came in a 25-litre blue plastic jug and was decanted into glass Santa Vittoria mineral water bottles.
One of her contacts said it could fetch about $3000 per litre on the streets.
All-consuming cocaine habit
Photographs and footage seized by police show Moss holding cannabis while wearing a bikini, clutching packets of white powder and Cao decanting the GBL.
Defence barrister Phillip Boulten SC said Moss had been humiliated by media coverage which included “titillating photographs” of her in the bikini.
Claims she was wealthy and an “heiress” because of her family connections could also endanger her in jail, he said.
Moss sold drugs and took clients as a sex worker to fuel her habit as a “very ingrained drug user” in which she went through up to $1500 worth of cocaine daily, Mr Boulten said.
The cocaine was used as a form of self-medication as it calmed her then-untreated ADHD.
“It was a form of self-medication which destroyed her dignity, destroyed her self-worth, destroyed her career prospects, and led her into very, very degrading life circumstances,” the barrister told the court.
-AAP
