Back to jail for trafficking

Three-year sentence after being caught again months after release

A trafficker who started selling and using illicit drugs merely months after being granted parole for similar crimes has been sent back to jail.

Rudi John Majcen was sentenced for one count of trafficking a controlled substance and related summary offences by Justice Tamara Jago in the Supreme Court in Burnie.

Police searched Majcen’s house on April 12, 2023, and found 2.88 grams of MDMA, 1089 grams of cannabis and 63.87 grams of methylamphetamine.

After being arrested, Majcen said he was planning to sell the cannabis but that the MDMA was for personal use.

However, he did not state what he intended to do with the methylamphetamine.

Justice Jago said bank statements indicated Majcen had been selling meth for a year up until police searched his house.

“I accept that some of the methylamphetamine in your possession would have been used by you personally,” she said. “But given you told police that you only ‘sometimes use methylamphetamine’ and you use it ‘some days and not others’, I am satisfied you were predominantly selling methylamphetamine for profit.

“It seems you were doing it in a relatively unsophisticated manner, and the likelihood of detection was, in my view, reasonably high.

“But this, of course, does not detract from the evil of drug trafficking generally.”

Majcen has been “a regular user of illicit drugs for most of his life” and was convicted of minor offences in 2006 and 2009.

However, in 2019, he was sentenced to two-and-a-half years’ jail for what Justice Jago called “very similar behaviour”.

“It is submitted on your behalf that following your release from parole in respect to that sentencing order, you were determined to address your longterm drug addiction.

“But within a few months of your release, your father passed away. You struggled to cope with this and returned to drug use.” Justice Jago said the inheritance Majcen got after his father’s death helped fuel his drug habits and trafficking.

“It is concerning that you again trafficked drugs within a short period of your release from custody for the same crime.

“Clearly, the sentence imposed then did little to deter you.”

While she noted Majcen’s guilty plea, Justice Jago said specific deterrence was important in the sentencing exercise.

“The distribution of illicit drugs through our community causes great harm and damage to many people.

“It is a matter of considerable community concern.

“Courts have frequently commented on the insidious nature of methylamphetamine in particular and the adverse social consequences it so frequently causes, including the commission of crimes to support addiction.”

Majcen was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment and is eligible for parole after 18 months.