A Sydney man who took his two-year-old son to buy $60,000 worth of MDMA at a suburban Bunnings car park will spend the next two years behind bars.
Jonathon Towers first achieved notoriety in 2022 when the Herald revealed his son had previously been photographed holding a firearm at a firing range in Koh Samui, Thailand.
Jonathon Towers and his son on holiday in Thailand in 2022.Credit: Instagram
The 34-year-old had just been arrested by specialist drug police in an operation that also netted his fiancee, Jemma Dann, 26, and four other men.
Using encrypted apps such as Threema and Wickr, Towers and his co-accused communicated with buyers and suppliers to facilitate the exchange of more than $600,000 worth of drugs, including 1.4 kilograms of cocaine and more than 500 grams of MDMA.
In one exchange in the car park of Caringbah Bunnings, $60,000 worth of MDMA was passed through the window of Towers’ vehicle and placed onto the rear passenger seat next to his then two-year-old son.
Some of those large amounts of cocaine and MDMA were to be sold at Canberra’s Groovin the Moo music festival
Jonathon Towers and Jemma Dann were arrested at their Caringbah South home in 2022.Credit: Instagram
Towers, who had barely survived a serious motorcycle accident in 2020 in Cronulla and developed a serious painkiller dependency, was sentenced on Friday to six years and six months’ jail with a non-parole period of four years after pleading guilty to drug supply charges.
Towers also pleaded guilty to dealing with $142,000 of crime proceeds and one count of possessing a prohibited weapon (an extendable baton), though Judge Andrew Scotting acknowledged there was no evidence the weapon had been used.
