A JURY is still deliberating over the drug importation charges facing Strathdale gym owner Jarrod Butler.
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Butler, 38, of Sunrise Court, appeared in the Melbourne County Court yesterday, standing trial on charges of importing a Tier One good and possessing ephedrine.
The accused was arrested in April, 2004, after police found a parcel containing 7000 ephedrine tablets at his Edwards Road gymnasium, the Feelgood Family Fitness Centre.
On Wednesday, Butler told the court he had agreed to receive parcels on behalf of Shane Geoffrey Charter, a former personal trainer and pharmaceutical salesperson, who trained elite footballers at the gym.
Butler said he believed the parcels contained vitamin B.
The jury also heard evidence from Charter that he and Butler's father, Lawrence, were part of an operation importing ephedrine and pseudoephedrine from Malaysia.
During her closing address yesterday, crown prosecutor Rosemary Carlin noted Charter's evidence that Jarrod Butler had ordered ephedrine from him because he wanted to make up a weight loss combination of ephedrine, caffeine and glenbuterol, known as an 'ECA stack', for his clients.
Ms Carlin said independent evidence supported Charter's claims, including that police found an ECA stack when they raided Butler's home on April 19 last year.
She told the jury they could `totally reject' Butler's evidence that he had got it to help his wife Carolyne, and had not known what it contained.
She referred to evidence from Detective-Sergeant Danny Rukavina, an officer who took part in the raid, who told the court Butler said the tablets were his.
Det-Sgt Rukavina disputed the evidence Butler gave in court, that Carolyne told police the substances were hers, stating that he would have arrested her if she had claimed ownership.
Ms Carlin said further evidence was the `cold and calculated' lie Butler told in a notice of defence document in June last year, stating that the packages belonged to the gym's previous owner, Adrian Bourke.
"A lie that was deliberately told because he realised telling the truth would implicate him in the offences," Ms Carlin said.
She said Butler knew that Charter, who decided to become a crown witness upon pleading guilty to the matters, would give evidence against him, and the lie about Adrian Bourke would be "out the window".
Ms Carlin noted Butler's evidence that Charter had threatened Carolyne, telling her he was associated with a man named Carl Williams and about another female who had met with `ill-fate' on a highway.
Ms Carlin suggested Butler had thought of the scariest person he could, and `thrown him in'.
"Lo and behold-Carl Williams. He's sentenced to jail," she said.
Defence barrister Max Perry described Shane Charter as `the linchpin' of the crown case, a "self-confessed drug importer" and "tainted witness".
Mr Perry said Charter had "everything to gain and nothing to lose by offering up someone to the crown".
The jury was sent out to consider their verdict in the mid-afternoon before being excused for the day.
They will return to court on Monday.
