A Nowra amputee confined to a wheelchair has been jailed for three years after pleading guilty to a number of charges including possessing an unauthorised pistol and breaking in and taking drugs from a hospital pharmacy.
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Edward Grahovac, 46, who is also known as Edward Curic, pleaded guilty to possessing an unauthorised pistol, larceny, break and enter, two counts of dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception and having goods suspected of being stolen.
Court papers said Grahovac was found on August 10 last year in possession of imitation .357 Colt Python revolver he was not authorised to have.
Court documents also included a number of social media posts with Grahovac posing with the weapon.
He pleaded guilty to breaking into the pharmacy at Wollongong Hospital, while a patient. He had been transferred from Shoalhaven Hospital for treatment on a foot injury.
Court papers said he was captured on CCTV, in his wheelchair, using a pair of scissors to gain access to the locked pharmacy around 11.25pm on November 24 last year.
When he entered the area he activated motion sensors, alerting security to the incident. However security guards were unable to gain access to the pharmacy and for three hours he was inside and could be heard ransacking the area and rummaging through a number of different medications.
The court heard as a result, drugs worth more than $1800 had to be destroyed.
Court papers said he removed a number of medications including Pentothal, a rapid-onset short-acting barbiturate general anaesthetic, Clexane, a drug that stops blood clots forming inside the blood vessels and the asthma drug Ventolin.
Police spoke to Grahovac as he was attempting to discharge himself from the hospital, against medical advice.
A search of his bag found two vials of Pentothal 500mg powder, an anaesthetic used in theatre during surgery and should only be used by a qualified doctor.
Grahovac told police it was "Fentony" a drug he injected daily and had a prescription for.
The pharmacist told police anyone administering themselves with Pentothal would "almost certainly die".
Police say he was also found with a bottle of methadone. The prescribed name had been scratched off, and had been administered somewhere else.
Grahovac claimed he got the drug at the hospital but it was a different brand to what was used at the facility.
He was also charged over the theft of an iPhone worth $1500 from a locked office at the St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney on December 14.
He was found by a doctor in a park across the road from the hospital with the device and also an iPad he had stolen and was attempting to sell.
When police arrested him he was found with an RSL club membership card, a BMW service card and a Sim card all belong to different people. Police charged him with having goods suspected as being stolen.
He also pleaded guilty to two counts of honestly obtaining financial advantage by deception, with police saying he used a stolen Commonwealth Visa card to purchase three pairs of socks, and a Fitbit step metre device valued at $64.90 from the Athletes Foot in Nowra on September 25 and two types of tobacco, and a lighter, papers and sunglasses from Cignal Tobacco in Nowra.
Police said he was captured on CCTV both in the shops and on council cameras in Junction Street, Nowra.
Magistrate Gabriel Fleming sentenced Grahovac to three years' jail from December 14 last year with a non-parole period of 18 months.
He will be eligible for release in June next year.
