THE baby wipes box sitting in the hallway cupboard of Darryl Wesley Black’s Ashmont house had a sinister use far removed from its original purpose.
In it was stashed $6798.90 in drug money from the sale of cannabis.
Police attached to Strike Force Calyx formed to smash drug supply in Wagga found the ill-gotten gains when they searched 26-year-old Black’s house on June 16.
They acted on information that Black’s house was a focus point for distribution of cannabis in Ashmont.
Another $16,000 was found in a safe within the cupboard.
Combing through the house with a search warrant, police also found a total of 671.5 grams of cannabis in three locations within the laundry.
According to agreed facts tendered to Wagga Local Court this week, the drug was contained in “marketable sized packaging and weights”.
Black has pleaded guilty to (deemed) supply of a prohibited drug and dealing with property suspected of being the proceeds of crime.
An early guilty plea and successful completion of the Magistrates Early Referral Into Treatment (MERIT) program appears to have kept Black from going to jail.
He will be assessed for an intensive corrections order ahead of sentencing next month.
“His partner said to me (MERIT) was the best thing that could have happened to him,” Black’s solicitor Leeana Burnard told magistrate Erin Kennedy.
“It’s changed his life.
“She thought he would never get off cannabis, he was an extremely heavy user.”
