NSW: Accused drug supplier arrested at PIC

AAP General News (Australia)
02-18-1999
NSW: Accused drug supplier arrested at PIC

By John Kidman, Crime Reporter

SYDNEY, Feb 18 AAP - A Sydney TAFE teacher, accused of supplying cocaine for police to
snort during all night drug binges, was arrested along with his girlfriend at the NSW Police
Integrity Commission (PIC) today.

During cross examination by counsel assisting the inquiry, Pat Barret (Barret), Lenin Marx
Lambert was confronted with videotaped evidence linking him to an 83-gram stash of the drug.

The tape showed officers discovering nine bags of cocaine secreted in a tumble dryer at the
Woolloomooloo flat of his girlfriend Lisa Jane Troost, in August last year.

Troost took the stand a short time after and was also arrested.

Lambert had earlier repeatedly denied hiding the incriminating white powder or having ever
sold drugs to current or former police.

But at the completion of his evidence shortly after 3pm (AEDT), he was ushered from the
witness box into a back room and taken into custody by internal affairs detectives.

He was then driven to the nearby Sydney Police Centre at Surry Hills where charges were
expected to be laid, a commission spokesman said.

Lambert's denials followed yesterday's testimony by rollover informant Senior Constable
Christan (Christan) Bruce.

The young so-called supergrass told of belonging to a small brigade of rebel cops who spent
hours on a high after doing lines of coke chopped out on toilet cisterns in seedy nightclubs.

He said that he had once tripped on a cocktail of alcohol, cocaine and ecstasy until the
lunchtime the next day, ending up at Lambert's Bondi home scrounging for more of the same.

The claim was another denied by Lenny Lambert today.

He conceded that another man earlier in Const Bruce's company did visit his house in a
distressed state, and bled "like a tap" from the nose all over his carpets and floor.

Lambert said he recalled having to then mop up the bloody, mucusy mess but could not
remember having entertained Bruce at the premises, then or ever.

This was despite having to endure listening to playbacks of five phonecalls recorded by
police of himself, Const Bruce and the man, organising the rendezvous at his home.

When asked time and again by Mr Barret whether he could shed any light on the secretive
conversations, Lambert could only reply that he did not recall or wasn't sure.

He said he himself had "gone through personal hell" with his own addiction to cocaine and
that the stimulant had caused memory loss and paranoia.

Complaining that he had been unfairly branded a pusher or supplier, he said he did not have
a regular source of cocaine but picked it up "like milk from the corner store" at various
nightclubs.

Likewise, Troost told of using the drug perhaps once a week, whenever Lambert happened to
score it.

The alleged conduit between Lambert and the accused group of current police officers,
former transit policeman Peter Murrant, has denied all knowledge of drug use or supply.

When asked to comment on Const Bruce's allegations, his co-accused, Detective Senior
Constable Anthony Binns, also said today of Const Bruce "he's lying".

AAP jk/sb/cfm/was/de

KEYWORD: PIC NIGHTLEAD

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