10 years jail for N.Z. man

Press, 29 February 1984, Page 4

10 years jail for N.Z. man

NZPA Newark A Federal District Court judge, Lawrence Lacey, yesterday sentenced an Aucklander, Donald Carl Dickinson, to 10 years in jail for conspiring to possess 13.6 tonnes of hashish with intent to distribute it in the United States. Dickinson was the captain of the 48-metre freighter Hetty arrested off the north-eastern United States by coastguards last November. They discovered the hashish — said to have a street value here of 5NZ150 million — hidden under a cargo of mahogany. Dickinson and his crew first denied four charges but, later, under a pleabargaining arrangement, pleaded guilty to the most serious one. His crew — two Britons and a Canadian — each received jail terms of eight years. All will be eligible for parole — presuming good behaviour — after they have served a third of their

sentence, in Dickinson’s case three years and four months. It is certain, lawyers said, that they will be deported after that. Dickinson, aged 31, an Auckland Grammar School old boy, had been in custody since his arrest in lieu of putting up a SUSI million bond. It was revealed yesterday that he would have received SUS4OO,OOO ($NZ616,000) if the hashish had been smuggled successfully into the United States, and that his crewmen would each have received 5U5200.000 ($NZ308,000). Dickinson’s lawyers immediately Hied a motion of amendment to have his sentence reduced on the basis that he bad no proprietary interest in the hashish, and that the sentence was therefore excessive. Dickinson’s brother and sister, both from New Zealand, were in court yesterday in Newark, New Jersey, for the sentence, as was another brother, who now lives in Canada.