HAMILTON - One of the Waikato's biggest drug trials wound up yesterday with three of seven defendants being found guilty on a range of charges.
The trial followed last year's two-month Operation Ring, from which police netted 150g of cocaine - worth an estimated $25,000 - and $60,000 cash.
Of the seven
people on trial in the High Court at Hamilton, Jeffery Paul Sutton, 42, Rachel Lisa Andrews, 27, and Stacey Anne Nevill, 28, all of Hamilton, were found guilty of charges relating to the possession and supply of drugs, including cocaine, morphine, LSD and cannabis.
Joel Earnest Sutton, 20, of Christchurch, Stephven John Cotter, 40, of Auckland, David Stanley Brown, 33, of Hastings, and Trevor Dion Tye, 35, of Hamilton, were all found not guilty on similar charges.
The group was arrested after police, as part of Operation Ring, ran a surveillance operation in June last year.
Listening devices were planted in a Hamilton house and a camera set up across the street, recording everyone who visited the house.
Jeffery Sutton and Rachel Andrews, who lived in the house, initially faced 30 charges between them, but that number was reduced to eight and six charges respectively last week.
Sutton pleaded guilty to six charges last week. Yesterday, the jury found him guilty of one of the remaining charges and acquitted him of the other.
Andrews was found guilty of five of the six charges she faced, while Nevill was convicted of six of her seven charges.
The three will be sentenced next month.
