A MAN who was ripped off on a $450 ice deal was then tricked into driving to Maitland Park to meet the "supplier", where he was blocked in and confronted by a large group of people who threatened him and smashed his car up.
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"They are going to hurt you," the victim was told before he tried to drive away, crashed into a number of wooden poles and then, terrified, abandoned his car and fled on foot.
He returned later to find his car had been significantly damaged and both the front and back windscreen had been smashed.
The details of the chaotic confrontation in Maitland Park were outlined in court documents after one member of the group responsible, Melissa Mundine, pleaded guilty to a number of charges in Newcastle Local Court this week.
Mundine, an ice dealer who was initially charged with armed robbery over the confrontation in Maitland Park, pleaded guilty to intimidation and damaging property and will be sentenced in Newcastle District Court later in the year.
The 31-year-old, who was represented by solicitor Mandy Hull, also pleaded guilty to supplying methamphetamine on an ongoing basis and dealing with the proceeds of crime after a strike force tasked with investigating the ice trade in the Hunter began targeting her in March and April, 2023.
It was the morning of April 3 when the victim and one of Mundine's associates arranged to buy $450 from a drug dealer at Telarah.
They got the drugs but the victim was directed to drive to a hotel at Thornton and wait outside.
After being kept waiting for about 45 minutes, the victim figured he was being ripped off and pulled a tyre iron out of his boot and began smashing windows at the hotel.
The victim was told to calm down and that the methamphetamine they had bought was "s---" or "jump" and they would need to go back to Telarah to get their money back.
They got back in the car and Mundine's associate directed the victim to Maitland Park, where he said they were going to meet the supplier.
Instead, Mundine's associate had been contacting Mundine and saying he had been assaulted by the victim and needed "help".
And so as the victim sat in his car in an isolated part of Maitland Park waiting to meet the dealer to get his $450 back, he was really waiting to be set up again.
Members of Mundine's group blocked his car in with theirs and got out, screaming threats.
"They are going to hurt you," the victim was told by the man who had ripped him off.
Terrified, the victim tried to drive away, crashed, and, unable to get out his car door, climbed through the passenger window and ran away.
Police had initially said the group was armed with a firearm and tyre irons, but there was no mention of any weapons in the facts Mundine agreed to sign as part of negotiations.
The victim called triple zero and returned to the car when police arrived to find it had been smashed up.
The group fled back to the hotel at Thornton, and one-by-one they were arrested over the next few weeks.
When Mundine was picked up at Quest Apartments in Maitland on April 6, she had $4700 in cash on her, the proceeds of her busy ice-supply business.
Mundine will next appear in Newcastle District Court on May 30 to get a sentence date, while the other members of the group have not entered pleas and remain before Newcastle Local Court.
