The founder of an anti-bullying charity – who was recently sentenced over shocking domestic violence offences – has escaped spending time behind bars for peddling cocaine to his mates over two months.
Conan Martin Visser was once living the dream, posing with famous Instagram models and Australian sportsmen and going school-to-school inspiring and helping schoolkids through his charity, I Can I Will.
But the 37-year-old’s public image came crashing down after he was sentenced for domestic violence offences committed against his girlfriend.
Visser on Friday pleaded guilty to seven counts of supplying cocaine and one count of possession.
Brisbane District Court was told Visser supplied cocaine to his friends seven times over two months last year.
Crown prosecutor Kimberley Thomas said he would supply the drug in a “social context”.
She said there was a commercial element to the supplies as Visser took money for it but acknowledged he did not do it for profit.
Upon Visser’s arrest, police discovered 0.16g of a substance that contained cocaine.
Ms Thomas said the offences were committed while Visser was on court-imposed orders for the domestic violence offences.
The court was told Visser pleaded guilty in 2020 to those offences, which involved assaulting his then-girlfriend in her apartment.
He avoided spending time behind bars after a judge ordered he serve the 12-month sentence in the community as an intensive correction order (ICO).
Judge Leanne Clare noted that Visser had a “less-than-stellar” performance on the ICO, according to a report tendered to the court.
“The report says he’s not interested in domestic violence counselling and really didn’t do much of what he was told to do in terms of treatment … but went to a couple of psychological appointments,” Ms Clare said.
Chris Minnery, Visser’s defence barrister, said his client was “in a very bad way” at the start of the program but quickly improved.
He said Visser had remained drug-free and had continued seeing a psychologist.
The court was told Visser had a good employment history, working in hospitality and motorcycle sales before starting his own business organising music festivalxjmtzyws.
His charity I Can I Will is a not-for-profit dedicated to tackling bullying and discrimination in schools.
Mr Minnery said the media publicity as a result of his court appearances caused him to receive death threats for months and Visser hit “rock bottom”.
Conan Visser has set about a challenge to eat nothing but KFC for 30 days.
He said Visser had recently filmed a successful documentary where he spent a month consuming alcohol and tracked its effects on his body and was in discussions with streaming services overseas for a potential show on the topic.
Judge Clare sentenced Visser to nine months’ jail, suspended for two years.
