Meth bust day before rapper to enter rehab
Kurt Bayer
Rapper Scribe was yesterday found guilty of possessing methamphetamine a day before he was to enter rehab.
But the chart-topping hip-hop artist, whose real name is Malo Ioane Luafutu, had five other charges dismissed by a judge after a trial at Christchurch District Court.
A charge of possessing an offensive weapon, namely a softball bat, was thrown out by Judge Raoul Neave who did not accept Luafutu was using it in an offensive way.
Possession of a P pipe was also dismissed, along with three allegations of bail breaches after the police prosecution failed to call any evidence.
A witness told how she was playing cards in her motorhome parked at a property on Olliviers Rd in the Phillipstown area of Christchurch on April 2 last year when she became aware of a Maori or Samoan man carrying a softball bat, saying, “Whose f***ing car is this?”
The witness said she had parked her car across a thoroughfare near the old Linwood Rugby League clubrooms which was popular with local drug users, youth, and flytippers.
Worried that if her male partner went outside to investigate there would be a confrontation, the woman says she went to see what the fuss was about.
She claims the man, alleged to be Luafutu, was standing on the wheel arch of her car, “swearing and yelling” and asking whose car it was.
The woman said he was tapping the bat on the car.
She told him the property owner had given her permission to park there. She had a card with the property owner’s name on it and went inside her motorhome to retrieve it. By then, her partner had phoned police. When she returned to give him the card, Luafutu was allegedly sitting inside the car with two other males. He was tossing Rashuns into his mouth and getting “angrier and angrier”, she said. Father of four Luafutu denies swearing, shouting, wielding the softball bat, or tapping the car with his bat, his defence counsel, Elizabeth Bulger, said. Police constables Kurt Harlow and Andrew Hearne were dispatched to the scene. When they arrived, they asked all three men to get out of the car. Harlow says he arrested Luafutu almost straight away for possession of an offensive weapon.
When he tried to put handcuffs on him, Harlow claims Luafutu was agitated, aggressive and angry. He allegedly called him a “pussy” and “said he could smash me”.
“I approached it with caution, he was a lot bigger than me,” Harlow said.
During a pat-down search, Harlow says he found a point bag of methamphetamine in his pocket.
A dog handler arrived and found the bat and also a glass pipe in the back seat of the car.
When Harlow asked Luafutu about the bag of meth, he replied that he had found it and picked it up.
Luafutu’s mother, Caroline, said she was preparing a farewell dinner for her son when he was arrested. His family was returning to Wellington and Luafutu was going into rehab.
Judge Neave remanded Luafutu on bail to reside at a Christchurch address and not to take drugs ahead of sentencing on May 23.