Captain underpants sent to jail

A Queenstowner who stashed an estimated $11,000 of drugs in his undies has been sentenced to two years in the slammer.

When cops searched Donn Rayniel Vergara’s house on August 1, they found 31.5g of methamphetamine in his room and $4280 in cash.

There were also containers of acetone and ethanol — chemicals used in the meth manufacturing process — eight cellphones and hundreds of plastic bags, commonly used to package the drug.

After Vergara, 30, was taken to the police station, they found a zipped pocked in his underpants contained another 28g of meth and 46 LSD tablets.

The 59.5g of meth recovered had a total street value of more than $20,000 — the LSD was worth about $1840.

In Queenstown’s court this week, defence counsel Hugo Young said Vergara struggled to fit into Kiwi society and make friends after immigrating from the Philippines as a child.

He was bullied at school due to his ethnic background and because he was ‘‘a bit different’’, Young said.

A tendency to become ‘‘fixated on ideas’’ was possibly due to an undiagnosed condition, such as ADHD, which resulted in him having a limited education, suffering from mental health issues and developing a drug addiction.

Still living at home with his mum, Vergara was socially isolated and naive.

Judge Russell Walker said he was ‘‘essentially alone in the world’’, apart from his mother, which meant there was no suitable address for a home detention sentence.

However, he’s granted leave for him to apply for that, if a place at an addiction treatment centre can be found.

Drink-driver locked up

A Queenstowner was nearly four times the legal limit when he drove head-on into a vehicle driven by a heavily pregnant woman last year.

The woman suffered a broken right leg, requiring surgery in Dunedin Hospital, and multiple cuts to her stomach and hand.

Raymond Daphord Hemi, 43, a concrete worker, was this week sent to prison for 19 months after admitting aggravated drink-driving and breaching a zero-alcohol licence.

Hemi was driving south on Arrowtown-Lake Hayes Rd on September 20 when he crossed the centreline and collided with the victim’s vehicle.

A blood test gave a result of 193mg — the legal limit’s 50mg.

While he told police he’d been drinking at a pub in Arrowtown with a mate and thought he’d be OK to drive, Walker said he would have known he wasn’t.

Hemi has 45 prior convictions, including for the assaults of two Frankton Arm Tavern female staff in 2020, for which he was sentenced to eight months’ home detention.

Along with the prison sentence, Hemi was ordered to pay his most recent victim $1500 emotional harm reparation, $261.99 for medical and analyst fees.

He was banned from driving for 15 months.

Recreational user

A former top mountain bike racer caught with cocaine has been told he’s lucky to get off with just a fine.

Cops found 1.47g of cocaine at Joshua Daniel Clark’s Frankton home when they searched it on November 22 — it was stashed in three bags in a chest of drawers in his room, along with 22 empty ‘point’ bags and a set of digital scales.

Clark, 25, told police he bought one of the bags for between $350 and $400 for personal use, and another had been ‘‘left behind’’ after a party.

Under New Zealand criminal law, anyone found with more than 0.5g of the class A-controlled drug is presumed to be supplying or selling it.

He was initially charged with possessing cocaine for supply, which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

After the charge was amended to possession, Clark admitted the offending.

In Queenstown’s court this week, counsel Roger Eagles said the defendant was raised in Australia and had been a national age-group rep
at two world mountain bike championships for that country.

He’d used cocaine recreationally and didn’t have addiction issues.

Walker, who noted Clark had been issued a formal warning about possessing cocaine a few months before his arrest, fined him $1000 and ordered him to pay $130 in court costs.

Other sentences:

● William Patrick Green, 36, of Queenstown, threatening behaviour, intentional damage, August 19, emotional harm reparation $1005.67.

● Leanne Skeggs, 47, customer services officer, of Wānaka, suspended driving, Lucas Pl, Wānaka, November 8; suspended driving, Cardrona Valley Rd, November 9, discharged without conviction, ordered to pay $750 to the Eduk8 Charitable Trust.

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