Guilty plea earns drug dealer leniency from judge

Man nabbed in $2 million bust jailed 30 months after owning up to crime

A Windsor judge told an ecstasy dealer that he’s lucky he pleaded guilty before sentencing him Tuesday to 2½ years in jail.

Srdjan Ljumovic, 31, who was nabbed in a $2 million drug bust, had previously pleaded guilty to drug trafficking and violating bail conditions.

The judge had mostly good things to say about Ljumovic’s activities while on bail after his 2011 arrest, but also told the drug dealer his sentence would have been much higher if not for the guilty plea.

“You do need to understand, and people in the community need to know, if you sell drugs of this nature you will face a significant sentence,” said Superior Court Justice Scott Campbell.

Ljumovic was arrested along with 10 other suspects after an eight-month police probe.

Windsor police and the Ontario Provincial Police spent two days in March 2011 raiding nine homes in Windsor and Tecumseh.

Following the raids, police said, they found $2 million worth of drugs, including 1,000 grams of cocaine, nine kilograms of marijuana and 200,000 ecstasy tablets.

Court heard Tuesday that Ljumovic was responsible for 70,000 of those ecstasy pills.

Police said they also seized $17,000 in cash, four vehicles and one long gun. Investigators laid a total of 37 charges related to drugs, guns, breaching court orders and possession of property obtained by crime.

Officers arrested six men in the raids. They later nabbed five more, including Ljumovic.

Along with a 30-month jail sentence, the Windsor man must provide a sample of his DNA and is now under a lifetime ban from owning firearms.

Campbell didn’t subject Ljumovic to any probation requirements following his release from jail, saying the man knows what he must do to stay on the right path.

He said Ljumovic has already been working a legitimate job while out on bail, is in a long-term relationship and has avoided people from his criminal past. Campbell noted that a pre-sentence report stated Ljumovic attributed his involvement in the drug trade to a “poor choice of friends.”

He also commended Ljumovic for pleading guilty. “It tells me you chose to accept responsibility for this offence,” he said.

Defence lawyer Robert DiPietro, who asked for a two-year sentence, said earlier that his client has been staying out of trouble and working for his fiancée’s father doing renovation jobs.

But DiPietro did acknowledge that, when Ljumovic was arrested, he was out on bail and awaiting trial for previous drug trafficking charges.

Prosecutor Paul Bailey, who argued for the 30-month sentence, said that as far as he was concerned, there were “no mitigating factors.”

He said it was aggravating that Ljumovic isn’t a drug user.

“This is strictly a commercial venture,” said Bailey.

When asked by the judge if he had anything to say for himself, Ljumovic declined.

But while an officer escorted him out the door following sentencing, Ljumovic glanced back to say “thank you” to Campbell.

You do need to understand, and people in the community need to know, if you sell drugs of this nature you will face a significant sentence.