Pubdate: Mon, 23 Apr 2001
Source: Age, The (Australia)
Copyright: 2001 The Age Company Ltd
Contact:  http://www.theage.com.au/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5
Author: Desmond O'Grady, with Agencies

MAN TO STAND TRIAL FOR ECSTASY SEIZURE

Simon Main, the former stepson of Australian entertainer Barry Crocker, has 
been ordered to stand trial on drug trafficking charges in Italy.

The 31-year-old aspiring actor, who has been held in a prison in Trieste 
since his arrest a year ago, faces up to 10 years' jail if convicted of 
involvement in an international drug operation that resulted in the world's 
biggest ecstasy haul.

After a preliminary hearing, it was decided last week that Mr Main and his 
alleged accomplice, Briton Alex Bruell, 26, would stand trial in a closed 
hearing from June 19.

The pair were arrested, in an elaborate police sting, as they waited in a 
pizza shop car park in the town of Lignano, on the Adriatic coast between 
Venice and Trieste.

Mr Bruell has been charged with possession of $A10 million worth of 
ecstasy, which was allegedly destined for Los Angeles.

Mr Main, who has repeatedly stated his innocence, moved to Los Angeles from 
Sydney in the early 1990s in search of film work.

At the time of his arrest he claimed to be working as a Los Angeles-based 
reporter for a Sydney newspaper.

Investigators claim that Mr Main was about to take delivery of 330,000 
ecstasy pills from Mr Bruell, which he then planned to courier to Los Angeles.

But Mr Main, who was found to be carrying $US26,000 ($A50,515) when 
arrested, has said he had no idea drugs were involved and had only expected 
to collect a large sum of money. His lawyers claim he had asked a friend, 
ex-policeman Jeremy Nelson, to tail him in a car for protection.

The preliminary hearing, which was to determine if the men had a case to 
answer, accepted as evidence testimony given in London by Mr Nelson, who 
fled from the pizzeria car park as police swooped on Mr Main and Mr Bruell.

The defence case is that Mr Main did not know about the drugs and tried to 
leave when he realised that drugs were involved in the exchange.

Almost a month before the arrests, a 25-man squad began to tap Mr Bruell's 
conversations from his apartment in Lignano with a "Dave" in the US.

When Mr Main was arrested, police found a satellite-link positioning device 
on his car and an open radio transmitter around his neck.
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