No Rush to release prolific drug dealer
PAIR SPOKE OF SHOOTING SENIOR COP
A PROLIFIC drug peddler who has been convicted of trafficking four times will spend most of the decade behind bars.
Steven James Rush faced Townsville Supreme Court from custody on Friday when he pleaded guilty to trafficking methamphetamine.
The 54-year-old will stay in jail until at least 2030, when he is eligible to ask the Parole Board to grant him early release.
Less than a year ago, Rush was jailed for more than a decade, given an 11-year sentence over a “very significant” drug operation in which he trafficked meth for about six months between March and September 2019.
Police uncovered more than $1.2m cash, 19kg of marijuana and more than 328g of pure meth after a series of searches.
At the time, police said a series of targeted raids undertaken as part of Operation Romeo Telos was the biggest in Townsville in the past two decades.
During the period, police suspect that Rush sourced and sold more than $2.2m worth of drugs across North Queensland.
Prosecutor Andrew Walklate said Rush was on bail for his offending when he continued trafficking methamphetamine.
Mr Walklate said Rush came to the attention of police a second time amid a police operation targeting the sale of meth. While he was not a primary target of the operation, he was intercepted speaking to another offender about the purchase of methamphetamine.
Over a number of months between May and September 2020, Mr Walklate said Rush attempted to source methamphetamine at least 12 times and “was experienced enough to fly under the radar” of police.
When Rush’s home was searched in September 2020, police found about $15,000 cash in his bedside table as well as drug utensils and a small amount of meth.
Mr Walklate said Rush struggled to source drugs with supply interrupted by the pandemic and that in “desperation” he reached out to his co-accused in the previous trafficking matter and asked him to mail drugs.
As part of their bail conditions the pair were banned from speaking but exchanged messages about drugs where they spoke of shooting their “nemesis”, the head of
Townsville’s Major Organised Crime Squad, before they faced the music and were sent to jail.
Mr Walklate said Rush sent a message that said “we will find out where he lives, we will get less time for fcking knocking him off than they are getting us for”.
He said normally the offending would attract a sentence of up to six years but as Rush was already serving an 11-year sentence he asked court to extend the time he must spend behind bars before being eligible to apply for parole.
“He was given the chance of being on bail and when he was given that chance … he then trafficked again with the
same people,” he said. Defence barrister Ross Malcomson said the total impact of any sentences imposed was important and highlighted findings the judge made at Rush’s previous sentence.
“Due to his psychiatric history his moral culpability was reduced to some extent and substantial (jail) terms will weigh more heavily on him,” he said.
“If your honour was to increase the eligibility date by 12 months he would have served nine years and nine months before being released.
“He may well in fact spend more time in custody before he is released.”
Justice David North described Rush as a “recidivist”
drug trafficker and noted the four drug trafficking convictions on his history.
“It was offending on a grand scale,” he said.
“You involved yourself in the turnover and sale of millions of dollars of drugs and you were found in possession of a staggering amount of money.”
In sentencing he said he considered Rush’s history, “complex psychiatric condition” and the legal requirement to not impose a crushing sentence.
Rush was given a four-year head sentence with his parole eligibility date extended to January 2030. His sentence will run cumulatively with the other sentence he is serving.