Supply claims single out star
FORMER top flight rugby league player Steve Michaels supplied cocaine to NRL players and code-hopping dual international Karmichael Hunt, police will allege.
The explosive claims were revealed yesterday after a magistrate ordered Michaels, 30, to stand trial in the Southport District Court on 10 counts of supplying dangerous drugs.
The allegations include accusations Michaels provided Hunt with an “eight ball’’ of cocaine, or about 3.5g, on three occasions.
The charges all relate to incidents between August 15 and October 25, 2014, at various locations across the Gold Coast.
Police will allege that on six occasions Michaels, a former Titans, Broncos and Hull player, supplied the drug to unnamed NRL players as well as to Hunt.
Sources told the Bulletin Michaels had refused to name the players involved.
The charges came about after police tapped phone calls between Michaels and drug syndicate leader and former Sydney Roosters player John Touma.
Michaels is not alleged to have made any money from the sale of the drugs.
Defence lawyer Campbell MacCallum, of Moloney MacCallum Abdelshahied Lawyers, said Michaels would fight the charges.
“He has taken a number of steps to prove that he has been drug free for the past three years by providing weekly drug tests,” he said.
Four of the supply charges relate to Michaels allegedly arranging for cocaine for his own personal use.
Hunt, whose career has spanned rugby league with the Broncos, rugby union with the Queensland Reds, AFL with the Gold Coast Suns and as a league and union international, gave two statements to police regarding Michaels. It is understood those statements, tendered in court yesterday, are vital to the police case.
Police will also rely on statements from four other people.
Magistrate Joan White varied Michaels’ bail to remove a condition he report to police. Michaels was arrested at the end of last year when he returned to Australia following a stint playing for Hull in England between 2015 and 2017. His arrest is the most recent related to an NRL cocaine ring that was exposed by a Crime and Corruption commission investigation that caught Hunt, Touma, former NSW Origin fullback Matt Seers and former Australian and Queensland Origin utility Jason Smith.
Hunt was fined $2500 in March 2015 after pleading guilty to possessing cocaine. In the statements, Hunt allegedly points the finger at Michaels as the person who arranged to get drugs to him. A former Sydney City Roosters player, Touma was sentenced in February to nine years’ jail for his part in leading the syndicate. Michaels remained silent as he left court yesterday (pictured) flanked by Mr MacCallum. Mr MacCallum said Michaels was having a tough time adjusting from life as a professional rugby league footballer to working nine to five as a labourer in Brisbane. Michaels is living at his Mermaid Beach two-bedroom unit that he bought in 2010 for $415,000.