AC/DC Drummer Pleads Guilty To Marijuana Possession

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Photo: Streaming Oldies
Phil Rudd, 56, drummer for AC/DC, was convicted and fined for possessing 27 grams of cannabis.

​AC/DC drummer Phil Rudd was convicted of marijuana charges in his hometown of Tauranga, New Zealand, earlier this week after being caught with just under an ounce of cannabis.

Rudd, 56, was fined only $250 plus $132.89 court costs, but the “drug conviction” could make it problematic to travel on AC/DC’s world tours, reports RTT News.
Police said had discovered the marijuana in the drummer’s boat, the Barchetta, at the North Island’s Tauranga Bridge Marina on October 7, according to the website SunLive.
Law enforcement officials claimed they found 25 grams of cannabis on the dock and another two grams on the boat.
Rudd’s attorney Craig Tuck requested a minimum sentence to limit the effect on the heavy metal drummer’s career, according to the U.K. Daily Mail.

“He travels extensively around the globe, across the planet, and on the basis of such criminality, which is low level offending, he is being targeted,” Tuck said in court.

Photo: rock.co.za

​Tuck told the magistrate that Rudd was “remorseful” about smoking dope and “has taken full responsibility for his actions,” reports The Daily Telegraph. (Gimme a break, man; is anybody else as tired as I am of wimpy and unnecessary apologies from stoners?)
He added that the wealthy Rudd had contributed millions of dollars to the local community since moving to the beachside town of Tauranga and buying a helicopter business in the early 1980s.
But police opposed the request to discharge without conviction, and Magistrate Robyn Paterson was reportedly not moved by Tuck’s argument. She refused the attorney’s request for a light sentence for his client.
“It was not just an accident,” Paterson scolded Rudd in court.
“You were blindly ignoring the law,” the magistrate told Rudd. “You have been playing Russian roulette.”
Given his age, responsibilities and rock star status, the magistrate said, he should have known how serious a “drug conviction” could be.
This is the first time Rudd, who appeared in court under his birth name, Phillip Hugh Witchke, has been convicted of a drug offense.
“I’m not a bad person,” Rudd told a reporter as he left the court.
Rudd, a member of AC/DC from 1975 to 1984, rejoined the band in 1994. According to Tuck, he spent nine months on the road with AC/DC in 2009, earning $310 million from touring.
“Over the last nine months, at least 20 countries have been entered,” Tuck said, calling AC/DC “one of the biggest rock bands in the world.”
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