Qld: Jail time cut for strip club nut man

AAP General News (Australia)
08-25-2000
Qld: Jail time cut for strip club nut man

BRISBANE, Aug 25 AAP - A Gold Coast strip club owner today had his jail time cut following
a conviction for stealing $11,000 worth of nuts.

In March this year a District Court jury in Brisbane found Robert Wing Fong Chan, 54,
guilty of one count of break, enter and steal and two counts of receiving in October 1997.

He was sentenced to three years' jail.

But the Queensland Court of Appeal today overturned the three convictions and replaced
them with one count of stealing.

The court found that Chan could not be found guilty of both stealing and receiving
the same goods.

It reduced his sentence to 18 months, although he will still have more than three years
to serve because of a breach of parole over previous drugs offences.

Chan had paid a storeman at Trumps' Food wholesaler at Moorooka, on Brisbane's southside,
to steal more than 60 boxes of mainly macadamia nuts from the Trumps' factory.

Each box of macadamia nuts costs the wholesaler $175.

Police accidentally filmed the nuts being delivered to the back of Chan's nightclub,
because of a separate drug surveillance operation which was undertaken for 17 months.

At the time of the theft, Chan was on parole after being sentenced to seven years'
jail in 1992 for drug trafficking.

He was released in May 1996 after serving three years and seven months.

But now, because he breached his parole, Chan must serve the remaining three years
and five months.

This is on top of the newly reduced sentence imposed by the Court of Appeal.

AAP smk/sc/hu

KEYWORD: NUTS

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