HE was the senior bikie with the once-enviable rapsheet – just a couple of fines for inciting a fight at Kurri in 1990 and a malicious damage the following year.
Now, former Port Stephens chapter president of the Bandidos, Ronald Leggett, is facing significant jail time after admitting to supplying nearly half a kilogram of the drug “ice” after being caught in a police sting.
Leggett, 44, of Bell Road, Belford, also pleaded guilty to possessing guns found at his property and asked a string of other charges to be taken into account when he faced Newcastle Local Court via video link on Wednesday.
The former bikie boss, still
sporting a long beard, pleaded guilty to supplying the commercial
quantity of methylamphetamine (475.38 grams) after becoming “a
principal person of interest” in Strike Force Okanagan run by the
gangs squad and “bikie squad” Strike Force Raptor.
Facts tendered in court showed
Leggett taking the drugs from a Newcastle source and onto another
Bandido bikie, Manning Valley chapter treasurer and secretary Paul
Rowsell, who was selling the drugs onto a dealer who turned out to
be an undercover police officer.
And it showed he had gone from
flying under the radar to being firmly in detective’s sights.
It is alleged Leggett supplied the
drugs, described as being of “dynamite quality’’, between October
29, 2014 and his arrest on February 11 last year.
When he was arrested driving along
the Link Road near University Drive, police seized 142 grams of the
drug, or five ounces in the old scale, which he was travelling to
meet up with Rowsell at the carpark of Heatherbrae McDonalds.
It was a trip police had watched
Leggett do several times, supplying between one and three ounces at
a time, before the larger quantity was asked for.
The drug was being sold on for up
to $3500 an ounce, or about 27 grams.
Rowsell was sentenced to a maximum five years’ jail with a minimum three-and-a-half years for his part in the supply ring.
The pair had attempted to use codes to keep police off the scent.
But things like “tonight and it will be three mates riding with me’’, “my mate wants two and a half for that Falcon ute won’t go any lower” and “any change in the weather, he was keen for a ride” was easily decoded to mean three ounces needed to sell, $2500 an ounce and if there was any more drugs, the buyer would take.
After their arrest, police
searched Leggett’s Belford home and found 52.4 grams of ice (two
ounces); a .455 Webley prohibitied pistol; a homemade single-shot
suppressor; a loaded Dan Wesson .22 revolver with serial numbers
erased; a taser; an extendable baton; two knuckledusters; .45
calibre and .22 calibre ammunition; three vials of steroids;
electronic scales; and seven mobile phones.
Leggett was refused bail to appear in Newcastle District Court on March 17.