Taiatini was arrested as part of the operation and faced charges of participating in an organised criminal group, offering to sell cannabis, and possession of cannabis for sale.<\/p>\n
At her sentencing, Tauranga District Court heard that after being charged, Taiatini had reportedly been prompted to \u201crethink her behaviour\u201d and had, of her own volition, stopped using cannabis and alcohol.<\/p>\n
Judge Melinda Mason noted that the death of Taiatini\u2019s father was \u201canother moment in your life that made you take note and stop\u201d.<\/p>\n
Monica Taiatini was sentenced in Tauranga District Court.<\/p>\n
Police allege Steven Taiatini was fatally struck by a vehicle on St John St, \u014cp\u014dtiki, after an altercation on the evening of June 9, 2023. Two people have been charged with his murder.<\/p>\n
Steven Taiatini\u2019s wife, Pauline, and two of the couple\u2019s other children are also charged in relation to Operation Highwater but deny their charges.<\/p>\n
\u2018You wanna buy an elbow\u2019<\/p>\n
According to the summary of facts, on May 27, 2024, Monica Taiatini phoned an associate and asked her whether \u201cyou wanna buy an elbow?\u201d, being a pound, or 453g of cannabis. <\/p>\n
On July 7, 2024, the defendant phoned another associate and asked if he was interested in selling 2.2kg of cannabis for $2600 per pound.<\/p>\n
The associate declined, instead offering that Taiatini supply the cannabis herself, and she agreed. <\/p>\n
The quantity of cannabis involved across the balance of the offending was about 2.6kg.<\/p>\n
Taiatini was given a sentence indication in November last year, in which Judge Anna-Marie Skellern gave a starting point of 30 months\u2019 imprisonment.<\/p>\n
Judge Skellern said the Crown submitted that the aggravating features of premeditation, quantity and commerciality were all present.<\/p>\n
However, the Crown was also careful not to overstate the level of commerciality. There was little evidence of ongoing commercial activity beyond the isolated offer to supply. <\/p>\n
The Crown suggested a starting point between two years and six months and three years\u2019 imprisonment was appropriate.<\/p>\n
Taiatini\u2019s lawyer, Jaiden Manera, argued for a starting point of two-and-a-half years and submitted that Taiatini\u2019s communications were limited in scope and there was no evidence of ongoing supply or financial gain.<\/p>\n
Taiatini accepted the sentence indication of 30 months\u2019 imprisonment, and this week in the Tauranga District Court it was up to the judge to decide what discounts or uplifts were appropriate.<\/p>\n
Judge Mason said while it was clear things were \u201cgoing in the right direction\u201d for Taiatini in terms of her rehabilitative efforts, she wouldn\u2019t give a discount for that factor.<\/p>\n
However, she would take it into account when considering whether to commute the sentence to one of home detention.<\/p>\n
The same approach was taken when considering Taiatini\u2019s personal circumstances \u2013 specifically the fact she has three children.<\/p>\n
Judge Mason said from what she had read, Taiatini was a \u201creally good mum\u201d who gave her children a lot of attention.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are fully supportive of all of their endeavours and activities, and they are doing really well, so that is all acknowledged.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taiatini was given a 25% discount for her guilty plea and a 10% discount for her background factors, which resulted in an end sentence of 19-and-a-half months\u2019 imprisonment.<\/p>\n
This was commuted to a sentence of nine-and-a-half months\u2019 home detention, with six months\u2019 post-detention conditions.<\/p>\n
She was prohibited from consuming alcohol and drugs, and ordered to do any rehabilitative courses directed by Corrections.<\/p>\n
Hannah Bartlett is a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail, and before that was a radio reporter at Newstalk ZB.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On October 22, 2024, police carried out more than 30 search warrants and arrested 28 people connected to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452462,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[164936,1558,17285,14032,12471,2082,230203,102461,4507,4280,111,43,139,69,1118,17286,2572,669,5161,21499,52164,230204],"class_list":["post-452461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-barbarians","tag-been","tag-cannabis","tag-daughter","tag-dealing","tag-for","tag-gangboss","tag-highwater","tag-late","tag-mongrel","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-operation","tag-president","tag-ptiki","tag-sentenced","tag-slain","tag-steven","tag-taiatini"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}