Bassam Hamzy was found guilty of supplying more than 450g of methamphetamine in late 2017 and early 2018 while serving a lengthy sentence for murder.
At the time, the head of the Brothers 4 Life crime gang was an inmate of Goulburn's High Risk Management Correctional Centre - commonly known as "Supermax" - where he remains alongside many of the nation's most dangerous offenders.
However, his lawyer Dennis Stewart told a sentence hearing in Sydney's Downing Centre District Court on Tuesday that Hamzy had "changed" and his former gang was no longer operating.
"My submission is that Brothers 4 Life apparently is no longer operative," Mr Stewart told the court.
"Mr Hamzy is not pursuing any involvement in any such group."
Mr Stewart said Hamzy had turned his mind to more lawful forms of business and deterred other former members of the gang from pursuing criminal activities.
"A lot of water's gone under the bridge in five years," Mr Stewart said.
"He has changed. His state of mind has changed. His view of the future has changed."
Hamzy overcame intensely restrictive conditions behind bars to direct five separate drug deals using a contraband mobile phone and by giving directions through his lawyer Martin Churchill, who has since died.
Crown prosecutor Adrian Robertson argued Hamzy had "a distinct ability to get around rules and … manipulate those who one might think might not be easily manipulated".
"He corrupted the lawyer and was able to use a contraband phone," Mr Robertson said.
"He was able to utilise the lawyer to pass on messages."
Mr Stewart said Hamzy grew up in a dysfunctional family environment with a "violent" father who came from a background of armed conflict in Lebanon, and was himself incarcerated when Hamzy was around 12 or 13 years old.
"That's when Mr Hamzy as it were, hit the streets and commenced selling drugs," Mr Stewart said.
Hamzy has spent the past quarter of a century behind bars since being taken into custody when he was 19 over a fatal shooting on Sydney's Oxford St in 1998.
The now 46-year-old won't be eligible for parole until June 2035, when whatever sentence he receives for the drug offences is expected to start.
Mr Stewart said the conditions Hamzy had endured since being sent to the Supermax jail in 2002 were akin to torture and it was remarkable he had not gone insane..
"Those custodial arrangements appear to be probably the strictest conditions and the most onerous conditions of any prisoner in New South Wales," he said.
Judge Antony Townsend accepted the conditions placed on Hamzy were onerous, but said the "elephant in the room" was that he continued to offend while under those restrictions.
"I don't think there is any dispute that there is a high degree of isolation, a high degree of restrictions," he said.
"Those restrictions were wholly unsuccessful in relation to stopping the offender committing further offences."
Hamzy was also convicted of dealing with $14,000 as the proceeds of crime.
A sentence date has been set for April 2.
The hearing continues.
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