A Queenstown man caught with drugs worth an estimated $11,000 in his underpants has been sentenced to two years’ prison.
Police searched the home of Donn Rayniel Vergara, 30, on August 1 to find 31.5g of methamphetamine in his bedroom and $4280 in cash.
After Vergara was taken to the Queenstown police station, a zipped pocket in his underpants contained another 28g of methamphetamine and 46 LSD tablets.
The total of 59.5g in meth recovered had an estimated street value of more than $20,000, and the LSD was estimated at $1840.
At Vergara’s sentencing in the Queenstown District Court yesterday on charges of possessing methamphetamine for supply and possessing LSD for supply, counsel Hugo Young said he had struggled to fit into New Zealand society and make friends after migrating from the Philippines as a child.
He was bullied at school due to his ethnic background and because he was "a bit different", Mr Young said.
A tendency to become "fixated on ideas" was possibly due to an undiagnosed condition such as ADHD.
It had resulted in him having a limited education, suffering from mental health issues, including anxiety, and developing a drug addiction.
He had become a "socially isolated" and naive man who, at the age of 30, continued to live at home with his mother.
There was a clear link between his drug addiction and the offending, he said.
Judge Russell Walker said the defendant was "essentially alone in the world" apart from his mother, which meant there was no suitable address for a home detention sentence.
He convicted Vergara and sentenced him to two years’ prison, but granted him leave to apply for home detention if a place at an addiction treatment centre could be found.
— Guy Williams, NZ on Air court reporter
