A glamorous jeweller and council worker has been jailed for her role in her boyfriend’s million-dollar ice syndicate.
Natascha Consigli met her partner in a rehabilitation facility after battling drug addiction, Wollongong District Court heard on Wednesday.
Despite the couple remaining drug-free upon leaving, she soon discovered her boyfriend was a “major meth dealer,” Judge Andrew Haesler said.
“She stayed with him and … she’s aware of his business, helps him with deliveries and then she’s caught with full knowledge of the funds which are funding her lifestyle”.
The court heard the couple were busted with almost $1m in cash inside a Wollongong storage shed and were arrested on December 16, 2021.
Reading from agreed facts, Judge Haesler said police surveillance recorded them entering the shed on multiple occasions, including on December 7, when Consigli was seen counting cash from a shoebox.
Intercepted texts from Consigli to her partner read: “No just take it, put it in the account, then you’ve got money and stuff. You’re going away — I’ve got mine at home”.
Judge Haesler said she then wrote: “I miss playing with it (the cash) … it makes me happy.”
Police-tapped phone calls made it clear Consigli was “very familiar with the principal and the online supplier and would join in their discussions of drug supplies,“ Judge Haesler said.
While Consigli played “some role” in the management of the operation, he said it appeared to always be “subordinate to her partner”.
In the large-scale drug operation, more than half a kilogram of meth was distributed between August and September, 2021.
But Consigli was only charged in relation to a small portion.
The court heard she was charged with — and later admitted to — four cases of meth supply, weighing 56g twice, 14.09g and 3.54g.
Consigli’s defence lawyer argued for his client to be sentenced to an intensive correction order served in the community, telling the court she was mostly just a drug runner who was doing her intimate partner a favour.
He told the court that while Consigli had access to nearly $1m in cash, there was no evidence of her spending it herself.
Judge Haesler accepted there was no explicit evidence of payment made to her, but said drug networks “don’t come with an organisational chart”.
“How could I avoid an inference that she was doing it simply out of the goodness of her heart when she conceded she knew the consequences of her actions?”
The court heard Consigli works fulltime for a council in the Illawarra region of NSW.
On the side, the 48-year-old has a thriving handmade jewellery company.
According to the ‘ConsigliMe jewellery’ Facebook page, Consigli taught herself to become a silversmith.
“There is peace, love and light in the process of creation for me. I hope you enjoy my pieces as much as I do making them,” the description reads.
The court heard Consigli had a traumatic childhood which saw her mother die in a car crash in India when she was young.
Consigli’s lawyer said she later developed Borderline Personality Disorder, which was the “primary motivating factor” for her crimes, due to her chronic and obsessive fear of abandonment.
But the Crown prosecutor argued Consigli should be jailed as she was more than a drug runner and “wasn’t just sitting back, doing nothing”.
“She was aware of the finances and costs, she took phone calls, (on one occasion she) delivered the wrong amount and had to go back; she was fully aware of the circumstances,” he said.
Judge Haesler ultimately ruled no other punishment than full-time custody was appropriate, sentencing Consigli to an aggregate sentence of two years and six months jail with a non-parole period of one year and three months.
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That was for one count of knowingly dealing with the proceeds of crime and two drug supply charges, which Consigli pleaded guilty to. Judge Haesler took into account two further drug supply charges when sentencing.
She will be released on parole on August 10, 2024.
Her co-offender is yet to enter pleas to 29 drug supply charges and one charge of dealing with the proceeds of crime.
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