Bernhard Stevemuer loved excitement in his life – like the kind you find from throwing yourself out of a plane at 10,000 feet or jumping off sky-high buildings wearing little more than a parachute.
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He is apparently considered a pioneer in establishing base jumping in Australia, has qualified as a sky diving instructor, and even once flung himself from the Sydney Harbour Bridge in a stunt performed during his earlier years.
But when one contemplates his most recent whirlwind experience – getting involved in cross-border money laundering for an international drug syndicate – it’s fair to say the Fairy Meadow father may start wishing he’d opted for a quieter lifestyle.
Stevermuer was 40, married and the father to three young children when he found himself diagnosed in 2011 with his second bout of cancer.
The prospects of recovery were poor, and Stevemuer, a licensed commercial pilot with a small aircraft maintenance and leasing business at Albion Park, hated the thought of leaving behind a cash-strapped family.
So when a former neighbour contacted him around the same time and said he and his mate had ‘‘investors’’ who wanted to buy into the business to increase his stockpile of planes, Stevemuer said it seemed like a blessing from above.
How wrong he would turn out to be.
Stevermuer’s lawyer told a court on Friday his client was ‘‘naive’’, claiming he’d been ignorant of the true nature of his business partners’ operations at the start, however later learnt the truth – that the investor money he’d used to buy planes from Asia and the United States was profit from illegal drugs, and his business was being used as a financial laundry to make it look clean.
Here, Stevermuer was faced with a choice: come clean with authorities and turn his mates in, or continue on, knowing he was now part of an international drug syndicate.
He chose the latter, believing he was already too involved to back out.
The decision would ultimately land him a stint behind bars.
Stevermuer was jailed for a minimum of nine months on Friday, with Port Kembla magistrate Michael Stoddart rejecting calls for the sentence to be suspended.
Defence lawyer Mark Savic pointed to Stevermuer’s early guilty plea, poor health – he’s been given about five years to live – and extreme remorse and contrition as reasons for the court to grant leniency to his client.
‘‘He’s not shied away from the charges, he has deep remorse and shame for being before the court today,’’ Mr Savic said.
‘‘There’s no intention on my client’s part to be involved in breaking the law. He doesn’t go out to seek people in the underworld, he’s approached by people with an agenda.’’
Mr Savic described Stevermuer as a ‘‘gentle, devoted and trustworthy family man’’ who had the respect of his peers, but whose inherent naivety had been his undoing.
‘‘His love of flying caused him to be blind to what others might see were obvious signs to what was going on around him,’’ Mr Savic said.
But Magistrate Stoddart would not be swayed, saying a suspended sentence would be ‘‘totally inappropriate’’ given the serious circumstances of the crime.
He noted police had found $70,000 in cash at Stevermuer’s home – an alleged payment for bringing one of the planes into the country.
The plane, which eventually landed at the Illawarra Regional Airport, was raided by police in July last year.
Magistrate Stoddart found Stevermuer’s offending fell at the mid-range of objective seriousness for such offences and said a penalty of full-time jail must be imposed to deter others from such behaviour.
Stevermuer was handed an overall jail sentence of 18 months, however immediately lodged a severity appeal against the decision.
He was released on bail pending the appeal in the NSW District Court in June.