http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/...g/news-story/cf34b9276b78ffe9ba5309df234d3bdf
John Touma and former State of Origin player Matt Seers plead guilty to drug trafficking
Melanie Petrinec, The Courier-Mail
12 minutes ago
DISGRACED former State of Origin star Matt Seers will spend the next year behind bars after a cocaine addiction from his playing days led to a drug trafficking conviction.
Seers, 43, was handed a four-year sentence to be suspended after one year after he pleaded guilty to one charge of drug trafficking today over the cocaine scandal that engulfed Queensland’s football community three years ago.
The cocaine ring’s kingpin, fellow former rugby league player John Touma, was sentenced to nine years in jail without a fixed parole date.
Touma and Seers faced the Supreme Court in Brisbane today along with co-accused Peter Kassiotes and Adam Surplice, who also received four-year jail terms to be suspended after six months and a year respectively.
The four men were arrested three years ago after a Crime and Corruption Commission investigation into drug trafficking across the southeast, primarily the Gold Coast.
The same operation netted a slew of current and former football stars including Karmichael Hunt and Jason Smith, who both pleaded guilty to drug possession.
Other high-profile football identities, mostly from the Gold Coast Titans, were also charged, but many of the allegations were dropped.
The court was told Touma was the head of a “well established” business trafficking drugs in southeast Queensland with almost 50 regular clients.
Crown prosecutor Mark Whitbread said Seers, Kassiotes and Surplice were used as drivers.
“Mr Touma was identified as the head of the network... supplying large amounts of cocaine,” Mr Whitbread said.
“It’s clear that business was well established. Police did not come into it at the beginning, they came into it after it was established.
“Mr Touma’s operation involved him having a front... a wine selling type of business. It was clearly a front.”
Touma supplied drugs to 48 people between May and December 2014, and had 11 regular customers.
Mr Whitbread said Seers made 26 deliveries during that period including five trips to Toowoomba and one to Rockhampton.
He arrived at Touma’s Mermaid Waters home while police were raiding it on December 19, 2014 and officers found a bag of cocaine under the driver’s seat of the car he was in.
The men were charged soon after.
Seers’ barrister, Patrick Wilson, said the former rugby league star was introduced to drugs in his playing days.
“The long-standing nature of his drug problems stem back to his professional sporting days,” Mr Wilson said.
“(Seers was) unequipped to handle life post-retirement from professional sports.”
Justice Peter Flanagan noted Seers had been battling addiction since the 1990s, and his former NRL club sent him to rehabilitation in 1998, only for him to continue using drugs throughout 1999.
Seers played for the North Sydney Bears until 2000, when he switched to West Tigers.
The court was told Touma established his thriving cocaine business after his mother was murdered and he fell out with his family, turning to drugs.
