WA: 79-year-old drug trafficker to spend last years in jail

AAP General News (Australia)
08-04-2006
WA: 79-year-old drug trafficker to spend last years in jail

By Adam Gartrell

PERTH, Aug 4 AAP - A 79-year-old Perth widower looks set to spend the rest of his life
behind bars after being jailed for nine years for trafficking heroin and methylamphetamine.

Robert Lajos Gulyas had previously pleaded guilty in the West Australian District Court
to six charges of possessing and supplying the drugs.

He was arrested in December last year after police searched his Belmont home and found
about more than 500 grams of heroin, almost 800 grams of methylamphetamine and $260,000
in cash.

During a subsequent search of the house in February, police turned up another 400 grams
of heroin and $100,000 in cash.

Gulyas was accused of drug trafficking because of the size of the haul.

The court had previously been told that the Hungarian-born Gulyas, who came to Australia
in 1957, had led a life of tragedy before turning to drug dealing several years ago.

After World War II Gulyas fought in the resistance against Soviet rule of his homeland,
before fleeing as a refugee.

He settled with his wife and children in Australia a few years later, but his wife
was killed in a car crash in 1971.

He remarried, to the "love of his life", in 1993 but she was diagnosed with cancer
soon after and died in 2003.

A depressed Gulyas, who had led a previously blameless life and had never been convicted
of a crime, turned to drug dealing.

In sentencing today Judge Shauna Deane said Gulyas had subsequently, over several years,
become quite "highly placed" and well-connected in the criminal underworld.

"It's a tragedy for you personally that after many years of being productive and law
abiding ... you are now someone who has disgraced himself in the eyes of the community,"

Justice Deane said.

Justice Deane said she had to sentence him to a lengthy term of imprisonment for trafficking
such an enormous amount of drugs.

She sentenced him to nine years in prison and said it was likely Gulyas would spend
the last years of his life in custody for his "morally reprehensible" crimes.

Gulyas will be eligible for parole in 2012.

AAP ag/jt/sp

KEYWORD: GULYAS

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