1080 blackmailer sentenced
1080 blackmailer Jeremy Kerr has had an extra 15 months added to his jail term after pleading guilty to five drugs charges.
Kerr, 60, appeared at the High Court at Auckland on July 8 after earlier pleading guilty to one charge of supplying a class C drug, and four charges of possessing a class C drug for supply.
Sentencing judge Justice Geoffrey Venning said Kerr’s drug offending was purely for monetary gain and he had made a ‘‘bad business decision’’.
‘‘You were aware that what you were doing in this case was wrong, it was against the law, and despite your protestations otherwise, it was for commercial gain,’’ Justice Venning said.
In 2011 police carried out a search of Kerr’s storage units and found thousands of BZP and TFMPP party pills and equipment used to press the pills.
Although Kerr claimed the pills were only worth $2 each, market value placed them at $20 to $40, or a total of up to $1.2 million, according to a summary of facts.
Kerr was earlier this year sentenced to eight and a half years imprisonment after pleading guilty to two charges of attempting to blackmail the Government.
He was found to have sent letters to Federated Farmers and Fonterra, threatening to put 1080 pesticide into baby milk formula unless the Government agreed to stop using the pesticide.
He had invented his own possum poison and believed the ban of 1080 would ramp up sales of his own product.
On Friday Kerr’s lawyer John Billington QC told Justice Geoffrey Venning that Kerr wanted to get ‘‘this very sad and sorry part of his life over with’’ and was remorseful.
He was described as a model prisoner.
Justice Venning was sceptical of Kerr’s remorse however, pointing to Kerr’s attempts to minimise his culpability when he was first arrested.
He said Kerr had past convictions for cultivating and selling cannabis.
For each drug charge he was sentenced to 15 months jail to be served concurrently, meaning he serves the sentences at the same time. However it was cumulative to the sentence he was already serving for the blackmail.