Former prosecutor and barrister Roger Griffith was sentenced to jail in the Brisbane District Court on Monday after earlier pleading guilty to money laundering, cannabis trafficking and attempting to pervert justice.
The now-57-year-old and two traffickers planned to buy a NSW farm to grow and store cannabis using containers buried underground, Crown prosecutor Sarah Farnden told the court.
Griffith suggested farming goats on the land to distract anyone from its real purpose and even inspected one property.
But their operation was shut down by police before a farm was bought.
The court heard Griffith met a police prosecutor friend in a Townsville pub after his client Zane Cook was arrested.
Griffith showed the prosecutor a backpack of money, saying it was $25,000.
But the lawyer said he would not share the location of the tree where he dug it up, Ms Farnden said.
Police found a freshly-dug hole near a tree when searching Cook's property after the prosecutor told authorities.
They later found $23,000 in Griffith's wife's handbag and the backpack that contained the cash.
Griffith's involvement in cannabis trafficking was uncovered during an investigation into Cook who, together with John Benjamin, has already been sentenced.
The trafficking occurred from September 2016 until February the following year and involved the couriering of cannabis from Adelaide to Townsville.
Cook made more than $600,000 profit, the court heard.
Griffith's role was to provide advice so Cook and Benjamin could evade arrest and prosecution, according to the Crown's case which relied partly on recorded conversations.
Defence barrister Stephen Zillman handed to the court a report detailing medical diagnoses made since his client's arrest.
He argued Cook had Griffith "under a spell" when the lawyer was at an extremely low point in his life.
Griffith had been humiliated by events in Cairns and then ostracised by people who might otherwise have helped him.
"It reached the somewhat farcical point where he basically had one client and was totally reliant on Cook in terms of any income he made," Mr Zillman added.
He said Griffith's "life lies in wreckage" and he really received nothing out of his dealings with Cook, aside from vague "pie in the sky" promises of shares in a company.
"Your Honour can only imagine the acute embarrassment and shame that he has felt as a result of all of this," Mr Zillman told Judge Suzanne Sheridan.
He said Griffith would need to be in protective custody behind bars because he was likely to be singled out because he was a former crown prosecutor.
Judge Sheridan said Griffith was "in a position of significant trust" as a legal practitioner but had lost his career.
But she found his culpability limited by mental disorders.
Griffith was handed a five-year jail sentence to be suspended after serving 18 months in custody.
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