Ex-NSW Liberal leader Kerry Chikarovski‘s son has walked free after being sentenced for dark web drug supply

The son of NSW’s first Liberal leader Kerry Chikarovski has walked free after being sentenced for supplying drugs on the dark web under the name ‘AusCokeKing’ in exchange for crypto. Mark Chikarovski, 38, appeared before Downing Centre District Court on Friday for sentencing after pleading guilty to a raft of drug-related offences, including commercial drug supply. The property developer sold MDMA, cocaine, and methylamphetamine using the handle on the dark web marketplace Abacus, which he shipped through the post over about three months. The 38-year-old avoided questions from the media after walking free from the Sydney CBD courthouse hand-in-hand with his mother, Kerry Chikarovski, and lawyer Bryan Wrench. In sentencing, Judge Jane Culver said Chikarovski never had to physically meet his customers, making his “sophisticated” operation “far more serious than the average street dealer”. He was sentenced to a 35 month intensive corrections order, a prison sentence in the community, following a finding of special circumstances, including risk of harm while in custody. The sentence includes 18 months of home detention, 500 hours of community service and continued engagement with mental health treatment, as well as abstinence from drug use. Justice Culver said mental health and substance abuse issues and a dysfunctional childhood in the public eye underpinned the offending and reduced Chikarovski’s moral culpability. She went on to tell the court Chikarovski demonstrated “psychological distress” because of the harm his offending caused his wife and children, who he had not seen since January. In her submission, the Crown prosecutor said Chikarovski had undertaken significant planning to sell drugs on the dark web, which she said operated like his own personal shopfront. “The offender (Chikarovski) did not need to send out minions with bags of drugs to take to partygoers in the eastern suburbs, he had full control of his operation,” the prosecutor said. She went on to tell the court: “That gave him a level of protection that street dealers do not have. It also allowed him to promote his product without increasing his risk of detection”. The court was told Chikarovski advertised drugs online, including MDMA, as being “premium European imports” and even advertised cocaine as having a “spring sale” price of $299. “The average street dealer can’t do that, they can’t use any form of signage … to promote themselves or their products to prospective buyers,” the Crown prosecutor told the court. In a letter of apology to the court, Chikarovski said he had started selling drugs online because he “lacked the liquidity” to clear his own drug debts and had faced threats of violence. That was disputed by the prosecutor who said that at the time of the offending, Chikarovski had two Porsche Cayennes, $60,000 in private school fees, and a $2.2m mortgage. “On February 2, 2023, the offender bought a home in Vaucluse for $11.5m with his wife … it predated the first drug supply by the offender to the covert operative by four days,” she said. “He must have pocketed millions of dollars from the sale of his Bellevue Hill home. If he did have a large drug debt he said was about $150,000, that sale would have easily covered it. “The offender could have downsized the family home … he could have sent his two daughters to the local public school, but instead of doing any of those things he chose to sell drugs. “He had that choice, that sets him far apart from the typical user dealer who does it to sustain their own drug habit … A substantial motivating factor … was his own greed”. In reply, barrister Phillip Boulton SC agreed Chikarovski could have reorganised his finances, but it “would have exposed his problems in a way they were never really exposed to his family”. “The decision making was impaired and was impaired by a range of decisions that were themselves impaired because of a range of mental health and cognitive impairments,” he said. “We do not ask for absolution, he deserves punishment. He’s in jail. We accept that is necessary consequence … but it is in the context, of a man of dysfunction, that he made bad choices.” The court was told the 38-yer-old endured a childhood marked by dysfunction and the pressure of being in the public eye, and had mental issues including alcohol dependence and ADHD. Mr Boulton said that before and during the offending, Chikarovski was “burdened” by ADHD, trauma-based anxiety, a distortion of his personality and multiple substance abuses. Conversely, the Crown submitted psychiatrist Stephen Woods, who assessed Chikarovski after his arrest in 2023 and in 2024, had conflated conditions at the time with when he was offending. The court was told Chikarovski had also pleaded guilty to two violent incidents while in custody, including entering another man’s cell and assaulting him as recently as October. Mr Boulton said the incidents were evidence he was “marked for special treatment” and that in October he “snapped”, before submitting his term would likely be served in protective custody. Speaking to the impact of a custodial sentence, Mr Boulton went on to add that Chikarovski’s immediate family were not in the country which was of “grave concern to my client”. Chikarovski was supported in court by his mother Kerry Chikarovski, who led the NSW Liberal Party from 1999 to 2002 as the state’s first female opposition leader, and left politics in 2003. Agreed facts state that from at least February 2023, Chikarovski was the sole operator of the “AusCokeKing” handle which he used to sell on the dark web marketplace, Abacus. Chikarovski would send purchased drugs through Australia Post express post with differing return addresses, but was busted after a covert operative made a series of purchases. Chikarovski was wearing gloves and packaging cocaine and MDMA when he was arrested at a Bondi Junction apartment complex following a months-long police investigation. Officers seized large quantities of cocaine, MDMA, methamphetamine, and.$269,000 worth in cryptocurrency, which included Bitcoin, Ethereum and Pepe, from the property. A laptop also seized by police from the property had a number of tabs opened logged in to the “AusCokeKing” account, which agreed facts state had more than 400 entries logged. Chikarovski was also sentenced to 30 months in prison, with an eight month non-parole period, but which was backdated making him eligible for parole from November 2024.