A drug dealer who tried to blame his brother for the cocaine and MDMA police found in his possession has been jailed.
Lee Baker, 34, had bought the drugs ahead of “going on a bender” with his brother, Brighton Crown Court was told.
But after being arrested for dealing cannabis, officers found the Class A drugs in a raid on his flat in Grove Hill, Brighton.
Prosecuting last week, Dale Sullivan said Baker’s home was raided after he was arrested on suspicion of dealing cannabis.
There, officers found a small amount of cocaine worth up to £250, 94 MDMA pills worth up to £200 and about £25 worth of cannabis.
They also seized three mobile phones, on which drug dealing messages were found, and a quantity of cash.
He said: “He claimed the cash seized was proceeds of the sale of a car to his brother, and implied his brothers might have been to blame for the items the police found.”
His defence counsel said: “This was a small scale social supply set up. He had been going on a bender with his brother, and that was the source of the Class A drugs.”
He added that Baker said cash had come from a job he had been doing digging ponds for a friend’s aquatics company.
Sussex Police is making a separate application to keep the money under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
The court heard Baker has one previous conviction for drug dealing from 2011, and when the raid happaned in August this year, was still on licence after serving a prison sentence for conspiracy to commit robbery in connection with a raid on a Kent traveller site.
Sentencing, District Judge Amanda Kelly sitting as a crown court judge jailed Baker for 27 months for the cocaine and MDMA and six weeks for the cannabis, to run consecutively.
