0:01

It was a great shock and

0:03

scandal in the in the the police

0:05

had come the police arrested their their

0:07

neighbour Nick, the guy guy who called

0:09

himself Nick, the riverman. Nick kept Nick kept

0:11

raving onto the police about the

0:14

medicinal benefits of how his how

0:16

his grandmother back in Romania was

0:18

a naturopath or something like

0:20

that and how he is prepared

0:22

to die in jail his defend

0:24

his belief that cannabis is a

0:26

wonderful thing and everyone should

0:28

have free access to it. it. I'm

0:30

Andrew Rule, this and crimes. Today

0:33

we're going to go

0:35

back in time and

0:37

look at the adventures

0:39

of a Romanian a Romanian

0:42

called himself himself Nick the Riverman.

0:44

Now real name real name. is

0:46

a a complicated Romanian

0:48

name. is It is Gelew, Nikolai Pucia

0:50

or Pucia, but for our purposes, let's

0:53

our purposes Nick, because that's what he

0:55

called himself and himself from what everybody

0:57

else called him once he got to

0:59

Australia. Now Nick up, up, for

1:01

our purposes, he bobs up. up

1:04

in East at the district

1:06

of of and Bruthen

1:08

is in the old which

1:10

no of Tambo which

1:12

no longer exists but

1:14

the Tambo River runs

1:16

from headwaters up past Omeo and in those

1:18

in those mountains. It runs runs

1:20

down a relatively short course

1:22

course the mountains, through a

1:24

a valley, valley. the Tambo Valley,

1:27

and then it hits a flat

1:29

country at country widens out into

1:31

quite a big river into then

1:33

empties into the Gibson empties into the

1:35

the Tambo Valley has been

1:37

settled a long time, and the

1:39

upper reaches time course the upper rough

1:41

country. is very wild rough it's state

1:43

parks, and it's

1:45

and it's bushy and steep and

1:48

rocks and all the rest of

1:50

it. of it. And And there's not

1:52

much settlement through there, only different

1:54

patches along the river. the river. and

1:56

Bruthen is is of the of the

1:58

last of the flatlands. and people who

2:01

live just north of Bruton are

2:03

actually living. are butting the forest.

2:05

And this is where our man

2:07

Nick, the riverman, as he called

2:10

himself, washed up sometime in the

2:12

1990s. And Nick turned up there

2:14

with quite a backstory. Nick had

2:16

grown up in Romania in the

2:19

60s and 70s. At a time

2:21

when Romania was run by a

2:23

sort of a doctor, evil type.

2:25

dictator called Nicolai Chasecescu whose name

2:28

I can't pronounce but he and

2:30

his wicked dictator wife ran the

2:32

place like a personal estate and

2:34

it was very strictly controlled it

2:37

went to rack and ruin economically

2:39

and ended up they were trying

2:41

to rule a place you know

2:44

with the jack boot and the

2:46

rifle and the gun butt and

2:48

inevitably Romania's economy fell apart and

2:50

people started to try and flee

2:53

it and the dictator's answer to

2:55

that was to put more border

2:57

guards on. and they had machine

2:59

gun nests and patrols and you

3:02

know people with rifles and dogs

3:04

and all the rest of it

3:06

to stop Romanians from escaping into

3:08

really interesting safe havens like the

3:11

old Yugoslavia which was not all

3:13

that safe but the Romanians were

3:15

so desperate. that routinely at night,

3:17

dozens of them would try to

3:20

swim across the river Danube in

3:22

order to get into mostly into

3:24

what was in Yugoslavia. And one

3:27

of these refugees who did that

3:29

deadly escape was this man, Nick

3:31

Pucia, or Pucia. And he did

3:33

that in around, probably 1988 around

3:36

that time. He gets a river

3:38

without being shot, although he told

3:40

people that, you know, shots were

3:42

fired, they might have been, and

3:45

he didn't drown obviously, and he

3:47

gets to the other side and

3:49

he's thrown into prison on the

3:51

other side, which is not a

3:54

very nice place to be imprisoned.

3:56

I think they put you in

3:58

there and let you go hungry

4:00

for... a fair while and eventually

4:03

he was deemed to be a

4:05

genuine refugee and he got to

4:07

Australia. So he hits Australia around

4:09

in the 89-90 and he's got

4:12

a wife and little girl, baby

4:14

girl, back in Romania and they

4:16

can't come out to Australia for

4:19

a while. So he goes fruit

4:21

picking, hard worker, goes fruit picking.

4:23

Then he gets a job at

4:25

the Vizi board factory out in

4:28

Noble Park or somewhere, factory hand.

4:30

learns a bit of English as

4:32

he goes along. Might have known

4:34

a little bit of English already.

4:37

Interestingly, back in Romania, he had

4:39

trained, apart from being in the

4:41

army for two years, which everyone

4:43

had to do, he had trained

4:46

as a forester. He knew a

4:48

bit about trees and a boar

4:50

culture. and horticulture and anybody that's

4:52

been to Eastern Europe, especially those

4:55

poorer countries there, knows that basically

4:57

all the locals are very in

4:59

touch with their peasant forebears and

5:01

they grow tomatoes, they grow potatoes,

5:04

they grow all the things you

5:06

can eat. and have fruit trees

5:08

and all the rest of it,

5:11

because without that they wouldn't have

5:13

survived. They are very good subsistence

5:15

gardeners and farmers from top to

5:17

bottom. And I can remember walking

5:20

through a Romanian city, a small

5:22

city, but a city, and seeing

5:24

a law firm that had the

5:26

science set up outside this particular

5:29

house in this quite a busy

5:31

street, saying, you know, such and

5:33

such lawyers in the local language.

5:35

and in the front garden with

5:38

tomato plants and sweet corn and

5:40

all the rest of it. So

5:42

even at the place where the

5:44

house was, the headquarters of firm,

5:47

they were growing vegetables. And this

5:49

gives you an insight into the

5:51

sort of person that this Nick

5:53

guy was, when he got up

5:56

to brew them in these gifts

5:58

land, he got hold of a

6:00

shed on a block of land,

6:03

and it was notionally a shed,

6:05

but he quickly converted it. into

6:07

living quarters and everyone who knew

6:09

him then said this guy was

6:12

terrific. He shed was really organized,

6:14

really clean, spotless. He made furniture

6:16

out of timber from the bush.

6:18

He had bees for honey, he

6:21

grew vegetables, a great variety of

6:23

them and used to preserve them

6:25

and all the rest of it,

6:27

swap them with other people, barter.

6:30

He would shoot rabbits for meat.

6:32

He would trap fish in the

6:34

river and he would trap fish

6:36

in the river and he would

6:39

get carp which are a nuisance

6:41

of course and a pest. and

6:43

he would turn the carp into

6:45

liquid fertilize it to put on

6:48

his vegetables and he would pan

6:50

for gold. In fact he built

6:52

a sluice box and he would

6:55

prospect for gold in the Tambo

6:57

River which is nearby and in

6:59

various creeks around the place. and

7:01

the sluice box is an arrangement

7:04

where you run sand from the

7:06

bottom, sand and little rocks on

7:08

the bottom of the river through

7:10

the sluice box and have water

7:13

running over it and you find

7:15

little specks of gold and indeed

7:17

he used to get enough gold

7:19

that he would sell it. This

7:22

alluvial gold which is... much sought

7:24

after because I think it's soft

7:26

and very easy to work or

7:28

something and very pure perhaps and

7:31

he would sell that to buyers

7:33

in Melbourne in suburbs like Corfield

7:35

and St Kilda he would sell

7:37

his alluvial gold. So he was

7:40

very much a hard-working, self-sufficient man

7:42

who was able to sort of

7:44

feed himself with his own efforts.

7:47

And during the late 90s he

7:49

was reasonably well known around Britain.

7:51

He'd learnt to speak a bit

7:53

of English. was always fairly well

7:56

dressed, people noticed, he had a

7:58

lot of gold chains and jewellery

8:00

and stuff like that, like a

8:02

lot of people who've come from

8:05

hard places. He liked to carry

8:07

a bit of gold and stuff

8:09

because you could move and take

8:11

your wealth with you quickly. I

8:14

think it's probably a self-preservation thing

8:16

with a lot of people. And

8:18

a lot of men found him

8:20

quite interesting because he was good

8:23

at doing stuff and talked about

8:25

it and was quite willing to

8:27

share his knowledge. Women weren't so

8:30

keen on him, most of them.

8:32

I know one of them, one

8:34

of them, one of their neighbors

8:36

is someone I know, and she

8:39

said, look, he was a bit

8:41

odd. He was sort of a

8:43

bit up himself and I found

8:45

him a bit sleazy, was a

8:48

summary of him. But she said

8:50

a lot of the guys didn't

8:52

mind him because he was an

8:54

interesting guy to them. because of

8:57

all the things he could do.

8:59

This same woman, young woman in

9:01

those days, she at one point

9:03

went canoeing on the Tambo River

9:06

and what she did was get

9:08

dropped off right up upstream, up

9:10

halfway to a place called Tambo

9:12

Crossing. I think there's a rock

9:15

they call white rock that stands

9:17

out in the riverbed and you

9:19

can get into the river there

9:22

with your canoe and you can

9:24

hop in and go downstream fairly

9:26

fast-slowing river and it's got a

9:28

lot of rocks and bends in

9:31

it quite an exciting trip at

9:33

different times of the year depending

9:35

on the water flow. And on

9:37

the trip down river, which might

9:40

have been six or eight cars

9:42

or ten cars, she noticed as

9:44

she whipped past one particular patch

9:46

of... very heavy bush, the river,

9:49

winds through heavy bush, particularly on

9:51

the wild side, on the east

9:53

side, the sort of inland side,

9:55

and she looked sideways for a

9:58

split second, she saw a big

10:00

black thing snaking into the river,

10:02

and she realized what it was.

10:04

It was a large boar polythene

10:07

pipe, what they called polypipe. the

10:09

bush and polypipe is used universally

10:11

in the country for irrigating, you

10:14

know, moving water around irrigation, that

10:16

sort of stuff. And this was

10:18

quite a big one, you know,

10:20

because a child's arm sort of

10:23

thing and it was poked into

10:25

the river and the other end

10:27

was vanished into the bush and

10:29

she thought, that's funny, I wonder

10:32

what that's doing out here in

10:34

the middle of nowhere. And she

10:36

didn't really think much about it

10:38

for quite a while until... The

10:41

day came when there was a

10:43

great shock and scandal in the

10:45

district because the police had come

10:47

and arrested their neighbour Nick, the

10:50

guy who called himself Nick, the

10:52

riverman, Nick the Romanian. And they

10:54

arrested him because someone had tipped

10:56

them off that he had grown

10:59

a large crop of cannabis upstream

11:01

in the bush beside the tambo

11:03

on the wild side of the

11:06

tambo in the forest there. And

11:08

indeed it turned out that he

11:10

set himself up very well. He'd

11:12

gone up a certain track and

11:15

then down another certain smaller track

11:17

and parked his vehicle, I think

11:19

he had a eute. and then

11:21

he had a homemade raft that

11:24

he'd set up so we could

11:26

use it, you know, some little

11:28

drums and a bit of a

11:30

deck or whatever, and he launched

11:33

the raft and he used the

11:35

raft to move polypipe and other

11:37

materials, a tent and different things

11:39

he needed tools and things. Downstream.

11:42

I trust it was downstream, I

11:44

think, to a patch of bush

11:46

that was suitable for his purposes,

11:48

and that is it allowed a

11:51

certain amount of sun in. There

11:53

was a good spot to draw

11:55

water from, and it was very

11:58

isolated. There was no path into

12:00

it, no track into it, and

12:02

hence using the raft was a

12:04

great thing because it meant he

12:07

reached an area that no one

12:09

would be driving. using motorbikes or

12:11

even walking. And he had set

12:13

up this rather complex and sophisticated,

12:16

dope-growing plantation. And he grew precisely

12:18

258 plants. And we know this

12:20

because he kept a diary. And

12:22

not only that. During the eight-month

12:25

growing season, which preceded his arrest

12:27

by two or three years, two

12:29

or three years before his arrest,

12:31

this good year for growing dope,

12:34

it's an eight-month season, and he

12:36

had filmed her. himself regularly over

12:38

the eight months and compiler three

12:40

our video in which he dubs

12:43

himself Nick the Riverman he doesn't

12:45

actually film his own face for

12:47

legal reasons he explains good idea

12:50

Nick But his voice is on

12:52

the audio because he's explaining to

12:54

an audience, I don't know which

12:56

audience he thought he had, but

12:59

he was explaining to whoever's watching

13:01

what he's doing and why, how

13:03

to grow it, why he did

13:05

it this way and not that

13:08

way, a amount of fertilizer he

13:10

used, etc., etc., etc. And it

13:12

was a very detailed insight into

13:14

how an illegal cannabis grower could

13:17

grow, cannabis in the Australian bush

13:19

in East Gippsland at that particular

13:21

time, using what was to hand.

13:23

It was such a good example

13:26

of how to do it. And

13:28

we'll get back to the real

13:30

story in a minute, but it

13:33

was such a good example of

13:35

how to do it, that the

13:37

forensic police, the police forensic botanist,

13:39

a female professor, I think she

13:42

is, She took that video at

13:44

a later date after the court

13:46

case that followed and she took

13:48

it to an international conference and

13:51

screened parts of it to show

13:53

her peers in the forensic botany

13:55

business how good this guy was.

13:57

So that's how good he was.

14:00

he was caught because he was daubed

14:03

in, the police were tipped off, and

14:05

when they got there, they arrested him

14:07

at his heart already, he shed, which

14:10

he turned into quite a comfortable sort

14:12

of cabin. They went back up to

14:14

the spot on the river, they had

14:17

the bush bashed their way in, no

14:19

raft for them, so they had to

14:21

park at the closest spot and then

14:24

work out where they had a head

14:26

and head across country through the bush,

14:28

and probably hit the river and probably

14:30

hit the river and walk down the

14:33

river and find the river and find

14:35

the When they got there, they found

14:37

the remains of the plantation. He found

14:40

where he'd put up, you know, stakes,

14:42

multiple stakes for each plant. They were

14:44

so tall, he'd fed them so well

14:47

with all this fertilizer and this stuff

14:49

he'd made from the carp to fertilize

14:51

them, that they'd grown between, you know,

14:54

more than four meters high. so that

14:56

in the old money that's more than

14:58

12 foot so they're 12 14 15

15:01

feet high some of these plants with

15:03

trunks at the base as big as

15:05

a man's arm and the police were

15:08

quite fascinated by what was left there

15:10

there was you know all the little

15:12

bits of poly pipe that he had

15:15

to trickle water into it he'd actually

15:17

by hand using shovels. dug things like

15:19

rice patties. He'd leveled out ground and

15:22

he'd put little banks around them so

15:24

that he had all these regular depressions

15:26

with little banks around them just like

15:29

rice patties and that's where he grew.

15:31

his stove. I'm not sure whether he

15:33

would plant them on the high bit

15:36

or the low bit, but he could

15:38

fill the low bit with water. And

15:40

he had a little two-stroke pump. He

15:43

used that to pump the water up

15:45

into these depressions and that would water

15:47

his plants for several days at a

15:50

time. He could give them a really

15:52

good drink every now and again. It

15:54

was a very ingenious and carefully set

15:57

up thing. He had a tent. sleep

15:59

in. He had a tent to keep

16:01

his food and all that sort of

16:04

stuff in, supplies, and he had a

16:06

shed, he knocked up a shed to

16:08

dry the cannabis when he harvested it.

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after his arrest in early 2004,

17:30

the police were tipped off in

17:33

late 2003, they went in there,

17:35

they found what they found, they

17:37

dug around, they looked around for

17:40

any sign of buried anything, probably

17:42

looking for buried treasure, you'd imagine,

17:44

and they found a barrel, and

17:46

in a barrel, they found the

17:49

video, the three-hour video, which is

17:51

basically what got this guy convicted.

17:53

Because when the police played it

17:56

back there was the evidence. They

17:58

found a diary which helped

18:00

them as well because it had

18:03

dates and places and times and

18:05

the activities he'd been doing and

18:07

they found cannabis seeds among other

18:10

things and probably I think vegetable

18:12

seeds as well because he used

18:14

to grow veggies to help support

18:17

himself. So it was a very

18:19

sophisticated setup and sadly for him

18:21

he had left this evidence very

18:24

neatly in the barrel and buried

18:26

it so carefully that it was

18:28

all preserved very well so that

18:30

when the police uncovered it they

18:33

could take it all to court

18:35

and use it. to get a

18:37

conviction. And back in mid- 2004,

18:40

he went to trial in the

18:42

county court held at Bandsdale and

18:44

Judge Jeffrey Cettle, well-known judge around

18:47

Victoria, now retired, was the judge

18:49

and a pretty experienced and seasoned

18:51

judge. And when it was put

18:54

to him, by Nick

18:56

the Riverman's lawyer, who was, you

18:58

know, trying heart. It was put

19:00

to the judge that Nick had

19:03

actually lost interest in the dope

19:05

crop and had let the plants

19:07

rot because he'd had a change

19:10

of heart and had decided not

19:12

to sell the dope on the

19:15

wholesale market. Judge Cettle, I think,

19:17

did not believe that. he preferred

19:19

to believe that these police evidence

19:22

and indicators that this was about

19:24

one and a half million dollars

19:26

worth of cannabis at street prices

19:29

but that he probably sold at

19:31

wholesale to people in Melbourne for

19:33

around a half a million dollar

19:36

mark which is not A bad

19:38

sum of money for eight months

19:41

work when you're camping in a

19:43

shed at Bruton back what is

19:45

now more than 20 years ago.

19:48

It's getting close to quarter of

19:50

a century ago and half a

19:52

million dollars cash with quite a

19:55

bit of money. And the smart

19:57

money says that our friend Nick

19:59

got all or most of that.

20:02

And so that judge, Judge Cettle,

20:04

sentenced him to some four years

20:07

and ten months, almost five years.

20:09

There were many charges and one

20:11

of them he had a loaded

20:14

rifle and ammunition and all sorts

20:16

of things. So there was a

20:18

bit to charge him with. four

20:21

years and ten months, of which

20:23

he had to serve a minimum

20:25

of three years. Now, he serves

20:28

his three years. While he's inside,

20:30

he studies up more, he's a

20:33

good student, clever guy, studies up,

20:35

gets another, I think, order culture

20:37

qualification, and an Australian arbora culture

20:40

qualification, which means that when he

20:42

gets out, he goes and works,

20:44

among other places, He works for

20:47

one of the power companies clearing

20:49

trees from under the power lines.

20:51

He got a job with them

20:54

and clearing fire brakes and all

20:56

that sort of stuff. So he

20:59

had quite a good job after

21:01

he got out of jail. As

21:03

he... actually had before all this

21:06

dope-growing business, he'd had a pretty

21:08

good job back in the early

21:10

90s with the Forest Commission. He'd

21:13

worked at Alexandra with the Forest

21:15

Commission as a forester, despite his

21:17

relatively poor English. And that had

21:20

come unglued because back in the

21:22

early the mid-90s, he decided to

21:25

go out on his own and

21:27

have a go-it business. And he

21:29

wanted to take over or start

21:32

up a plant nursery, I think.

21:34

maybe up at Alexandra but somewhere

21:36

anyway and he'd borrowed money or

21:39

whatever and had it had gone

21:41

belly up it hadn't worked and

21:43

so he'd lost money and that's

21:46

what took him to brew them

21:48

to a place that was very

21:51

cheap to buy something. and where

21:53

he could use the skills that

21:55

he had to grow dope. He

21:58

clearly saw it as a way

22:00

to get out of debt and

22:02

get himself a steak to get

22:05

another start in. his new country.

22:07

Meanwhile back in the 90s, early

22:09

90s, his Romanian wife and little

22:12

daughter had eventually come out to

22:14

be with him. Sadly the separation

22:17

of two or three years didn't

22:19

make their relationship any stronger and

22:21

after a year his wife who

22:24

I think could not speak English

22:26

had left him and she must

22:28

have stayed around Victoria because I

22:31

know the daughter grew up. in

22:33

Victoria and to this day is

22:35

in Victoria and is quite friendly

22:38

with her father and we know

22:40

that because she gave some sort

22:43

of evidence at his most recent

22:45

trial which is the second part

22:47

of the story. He was our

22:50

mate, the riverman, he does his

22:52

three years back after Judge Cettle

22:54

sentences him in 2004. So around

22:57

late 2007, he's out and about

22:59

again. He picks up workers, I

23:01

just mentioned, for one of the...

23:04

energy companies doing the power line

23:06

clearing and he's working away. His

23:09

wife of course has left him

23:11

and he goes back at some

23:13

point to Bruton. Now whether he

23:16

got back his original property I'm

23:18

not sure what happened there. But

23:20

anyway, I know that he went

23:23

back up there because he had

23:25

went back to Romania to see

23:27

his folks who he hadn't seen

23:30

for a long time and he

23:32

went over there and he met

23:35

up with an old childhood friend,

23:37

a female friend, married her and

23:39

brought her to Australia and he

23:42

took her up to his converted

23:44

shed. Bruton, which was where somebody

23:46

that I know met him and

23:49

her and they said the poor

23:51

woman she couldn't speak a word

23:53

of English. She was really nice

23:56

and she was a very skilled

23:58

cook, great cook, but she's living

24:01

in a converted shed on the

24:03

edge of the bush. No friends.

24:05

one she could really talk to

24:08

except him. And the day that

24:10

the person I know and her

24:12

partner had lunch or dinner there,

24:15

they said the food was spectacular,

24:17

but clearly the wife was not

24:19

all that happy. And they weren't

24:22

surprised when later on that wife

24:24

went back to Romania to look

24:27

after her sick mother. And she

24:29

stayed there. And of course, COVID

24:31

intervened in 2019. and she didn't

24:34

come back. And so I'll mate

24:36

Nick the Riverman. Here he is

24:38

during COVID. He's lost whatever job

24:41

he had. He's got no money.

24:43

COVID's closed everything down. His wife's

24:45

back in Romania and he's not

24:48

feeling too good about things and

24:50

he decides in 2022. This is

24:53

about. 22

24:55

years after his previous attempt, he

24:57

decides he'll have another go at

24:59

the dope. So there he is

25:02

up there. Again, somebody in authority

25:04

gets a tip off, perhaps, but

25:06

I don't think he any longer

25:09

has the land with the shed

25:11

on it. And this time he

25:13

goes back up there because he's

25:15

familiar with the district and he's

25:18

camping full-time in the bush. He's

25:20

got a tent, he's got a

25:22

yute, he's got a rifle, he's

25:25

got a telephone and he's got

25:27

a little scooter, a little Honda

25:29

scooter. And he's living in a

25:31

tent in the bush, just doing

25:34

the best he can. And the

25:36

relevant state authorities, the people that

25:38

run the forests, whoever long... An

25:41

interesting name, they went up there

25:43

because they must have known he

25:45

was camping in the bush or

25:47

someone was. And they go and

25:50

they find the tent and he's

25:52

not there. Next day the police

25:54

from Bensdale Turner, because while the

25:56

departmental officers are there, they realize

25:59

that there's I think 188 cannabis

26:01

seedlings in tubes. by the river.

26:03

So he's back at it. They

26:06

tell the police next morning the

26:08

police turn up fairly early and

26:10

there's Nick the Riverman. Old friend

26:12

he's standing outside his tent when

26:15

the police turn up and he

26:17

doesn't give any resistance. He's too

26:19

wise for that. There's the cannabis,

26:22

there's the loaded rifle in the

26:24

yute which is illegal, not that

26:26

they thought he was terribly dangerous

26:28

or anything. And there's Nick full

26:31

of piss and wind, because when

26:33

the police get him to the

26:35

police station and interview him, this

26:38

turned into a bit of a

26:40

marathon, much to the bemusement of

26:42

the judge who later. ruled on

26:44

the whole case, they filled 1,500

26:47

pages with the interview in which

26:49

several, like more than a thousand

26:51

questions were asked because Nick kept

26:54

raving onto the place about the

26:56

medicinal benefits of cannabis, how his

26:58

grandmother back in Romania was a

27:00

naturopath or something like that, and

27:03

how he is prepared to die

27:05

in jail to defend his belief

27:07

that cannabis is a wonderful thing,

27:10

and everyone should have free access

27:12

to it, the government should be

27:14

handing out cannabis oil to everybody

27:16

who's in pain or in need

27:19

or anything else, and you can

27:21

do everything with it, it's wonderful.

27:23

And he gave this relatively obsessive

27:26

and eccentric diatribe to the police

27:28

until their noses bled. And

27:31

this was so, just bled.

27:33

And this was so obvious

27:35

that it came through, that

27:37

the judge realized what had

27:39

happened, and the judge commented

27:41

on it, when he was

27:43

running the second trial of

27:45

our man, Nick the Riverman,

27:47

and the judge. I suspect

27:49

he was not quite as

27:51

flinty as Jeff Cattle, who

27:54

was the judge in his

27:56

first trial. This judge tended

27:58

to think that our man

28:00

was bit of a green

28:02

thumb. He was interested in

28:04

his views on the medical

28:06

benefits of cannabis and remarked

28:08

on him a little rily,

28:10

perhaps rolling his eyes a

28:12

bit, but in the end

28:14

he didn't really jump on

28:16

Nick the Riverman the way

28:19

he could have, he said,

28:21

now you're 59 years old,

28:23

you're a father, a devoted

28:25

father, a devoted grandfather, and

28:27

we have evidence of that

28:29

effect, you are a resourceful

28:31

man, you are a very

28:33

hard-working man, you are quite

28:35

a clever man, you appear

28:37

from our psychological reports not

28:39

to be mad, you don't

28:41

seem to have any mental

28:44

illness, despite your eccentricities, are

28:46

telling inside that one, he's

28:48

not mad. just a little

28:50

eccentric or at least can

28:52

pretend to be and he

28:54

said I will give you

28:56

16 months for having 188

28:58

cannabis plants which if you

29:00

have a hundred plants that's

29:02

commercial you've got 188 I

29:04

will give you four months

29:06

for having the loaded, unregistered

29:08

rifle and ammunition, but I

29:11

will reduce that to one

29:13

month cumulative. So the total

29:15

sentence for you, Mr Pucia,

29:17

is 17 months. But that's

29:19

a head sentence that's the

29:21

most you can serve. The

29:23

minimum you can serve with

29:25

parole would be 10 months.

29:29

and you have already been

29:31

in custody since your arrest

29:33

for three hundred and twenty

29:36

one days and that covers

29:38

that ten months so you

29:41

just to be clear moorold

29:43

now you can walk so

29:46

he walked out of Ben'sdale

29:48

court late last year a

29:51

free man I

29:55

used to be a homicide detective. It

29:57

was my job to lock people up

29:59

and put them in here. get treated

30:02

like a animal, you're going to act

30:04

like one. I didn't really care what

30:06

happened to them. Whatever they got inside,

30:08

I reckon they deserved. You walk out

30:10

of the cell, you might not be

30:12

walking back in that night. Now I'm

30:14

going back into a maximum security prison

30:17

to find out what I was missing.

30:19

We thought who was going to be

30:21

a slaughterhouse. Join me on my prison

30:23

journey. Listen to my new podcast, Breaking

30:25

Badness, with Gary Jublin. Visit Breaking. Cocaine

30:30

is a global industry where

30:32

the profits are counted up

30:34

in millions and the losses

30:37

measured out in murders. Because

30:39

it's only business. And right

30:41

now, business is good. And

30:43

I'm like, to watch yourself,

30:46

what are you talking about?

30:48

I don't think we can

30:50

rest our way out of

30:53

this. Listen to cocaine ink,

30:55

wherever you get your podcasts

30:57

or visit cocaine ink.com. That

31:00

is the story of Nick

31:02

the Riverman, the Romanian refugee,

31:04

who was caught twice growing

31:06

dope in large commercial quantities

31:09

in Victoria and has luckily

31:11

been able to go back

31:13

on the street and with

31:16

any luck stay out of

31:18

trouble. And so

31:20

he's got an opportunity to go

31:22

back to normal gardening, you know,

31:24

bees and things like that. There

31:27

is another thing he might be

31:29

able to do. His neighbours from

31:31

the old days remember something he

31:34

did very well. They said he

31:36

made beautiful, agrade spirits. He must

31:38

have had a still setup and

31:40

he could make snaps, brandy and

31:43

vodka. And they said he was

31:45

very, very good at it. It

31:47

was high quality stuff. Perhaps

31:50

he should become a boutique

31:52

spirit maker. It's all the

31:55

rage. I'd buy his gin.

32:04

Thanks for listening. listening. is

32:06

a Sunday Herald is a

32:08

Sunday Herald Australia. Our

32:11

producer is Johnty Burton. Our

32:13

For my columns,

32:15

is and more,

32:18

to For my columns .au heraldson.com.au

32:20

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32:23

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32:25

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32:27

news podcasts.com .au. That

32:30

is all one word.

32:32

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