MacGill expected to serve community sentence after conviction over a cocaine deal, which led to his kidnapping.
In March, a jury determined that MacGill provided drugs for the April 2021 transaction between his brother-in-law and his regular dealer. The 54-year-old was unaware that a one-kilogram block had changed hands, even though he knew the cocaine was worth AU$330,000. The jury found him guilty of the lesser offence of supplying an indictable amount of coke, but not guilty of participating in a significant commercial narcotics supply.
When MacGill showed up at Downing Centre District Court on Friday, former Test captain Steve Waugh supported his former teammate in a statement.
“I believe that Stuart has the background of knowledge accumulated in his life and playing days to appreciate all the options for the future and the hard work and steps required in this process,” Waugh wrote in a letter to the court.
MacGill was given a one-year, ten-month intensive correctional order. Instead of going to jail, the judgement requires him to perform 495 hours of community service and submit to a drug test.
Judge Nicole Noman concluded that MacGill was instrumental in arranging the cocaine transaction. “His role was essential to bring the parties together and for the transaction to occur,” she stated.
Following a drug rip-off in which his drug dealer stole two bricks of cocaine, MacGill’s violent kidnapping was facilitated by the lucrative cocaine trade.
He was thereafter the target of negative media coverage following the kidnapping.
“The offender’s colossal lapse of judgment has been causative of a very public fall from grace,” the judge said.