An Adelaide man will spend almost four years in jail after police found drugs and cash hidden in his house twice in four months.
In January, police found more than 600 grams of methamphetamine and a container with just over $50,000 in cash in it, down a hole in the backyard of the house 39-year-old Chad Rick Modra shared with his parents in Morphett Vale.
They also found about 1.8 litres of the drug GHB and almost $50,000 in cash in bottles at the home in September 2021.
Modra pleaded guilty to two counts of trafficking in a commercial quantity of a controlled drug, one count of possessing a controlled drug for supply to another person and one count of money laundering.
He was also sentenced for breaching a condition of a home detention order he was granted in September — by being charged over the second set of drugs and cash found.
His parents, Ricky Andrew Modra and Carolyn Patricia Modra, had charges against them dropped.
Step up from previous offending
District Court Judge Geraldine Davison said Modra had a "lengthy criminal history" but the charges she sentenced him for were "significantly more serious than anything you have committed in the past".
The previous charges included drug possession and driving offences.
"What is clear is that you had been engaging in a significant amount of drug dealing and that this occurred whilst you were the subject of court orders, including home detention bail and a home detention jail order," Judge Davison said.
"On the more positive side, you have commenced engaging in activities whilst in custody and expressed a wish to be abstinent from illicit substances."
She said Modra was particularly contrite about his mother having to spend a week in jail following her arrest in January.
Modra's head sentence was seven years, six months and 15 days in jail, with a non-parole period of three years, 11 months and three weeks.
The January search of the Modras' house was conducted as part of Taskforce Southern, an operation targeting crimes in Adelaide's southern suburbs.
They were not linked with any violent crimes.
Modra's sentence was handed down after a loophole pertaining to the drug GHB was closed last month.
Under the overturned laws, people who trafficked large quantities of a drug in its pure form could only be charged with a basic trafficking offence, which carried a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
