Beautician jailed over drugs and crime spree
AN INNISFAIL beautician whose downward spiral into criminality was fuelled by a methamphetamine addiction has learned her fate in court.
Morgan Marozzi appeared in the Cairns Supreme Court on Wednesday via video link from the Townsville Women’s Correctional Centre and pleaded guilty to a slew of charges, including possessing 64.827g of pure methylamphetamine, fraud, and evading police in an attempt to rescue her thenpartner and co-offender Joshua Russell Best while he was being pursued.
The court heard police searched Marozzi’s home that she occupied with Best in November 2019 and found two bags of a substance which amounted to 64.827g of pure methylamphetamine, an amount which Chief Justice Catherine Holmes said would “reap considerable profits on the market”.
Then on December 20, 2019, Marozzi “came to the rescue” of her then-partner Best, who was being pursued by police at the time.
“You met him in a vehicle and then sped away, sometimes driving without your lights on in order to avoid police,” Justice Holmes observed.
Crown prosecutor Nathan Crane told the court Marozzi was a mature woman who’d only offended later in life, and whose period of offending “really seemed to coincide, frankly, with the release from custody of Joshua Best”.
Mr Crane said the “cache of offending” over the next eight or so months after she was charged with possessing a commercial quantity of ice and was subject to bail was indicative of “someone who was returning to the use of drugs over that time period, before her final arrest and pre-sentence detention”.
Defence barrister Kelly Goodwin told the court his client was born and raised in Innisfail, and that a family tragedy three years ago would “start the downward track in her offending”. He also noted “the co-offender she got involved with seems to have influenced her greatly in her offending conduct”.
Mr Goodwin told the court his client was running her own private beauty business prior to being remanded in custody and her downward spiral.
In sentencing Marozzi, Justice Holmes took into account her early plea of guilty, the references tendered in her favour, and her work towards rehabilitation while in custody.
Marozzi was sentenced to three years imprisonment with a parole release date of August 6, taking into account 314 days already served in custody.
She was also disqualified from driving for two years.