A troubled former TV star and model who has spent years in prison for drug dealing will soon be sentenced for twice driving with drugs in her system — including once crashing her car while under the influence of ice.
Jordan Finlayson, who was a professional dancer before she starred in the TV show Beauty and the Geek several years ago, pleaded guilty to driving under the influence of drugs and drug possession at Sydney’s Downing Centre Court today.
The 32-year-old was due to be sentenced for a separate charge of driving with drugs in her system, but this was adjourned until November 3.
The glamorous woman wore a short white dress with black heels and carried a large black Louis Vuitton bag to her court appearance.
According to court documents, police were called to the west sydney suburb of Ermington shortly before 4am on February 7 after Finlayson crashed a white Toyota Yaris into a guardrail.
They arrived to find her unconscious in the driver’s seat before she started making “groaning” noises while being helped by an unknown bystander.
After not responding at first, she woke up to police opening the passenger door and began acting erratic, the documents state.
When police arrived, Finlayson was being assisted by an “unknown and unrelated” witness while making groaning noises.
She then leant over to the passenger side and muttered “hey babe” to the empty seat, causing her to become confused and distressed. Struggling to stand up, she was put on a stretcher and could not answer questions asked by police except for telling them she had drank alcohol.
The court documents state Finlayson was taken to hospital for treatment, but police were told she “absconded” the next day without giving a urine sample. A blood sample returned a positive result for gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB) and ice.
In another frightening incident at about 3pm on May 20 in Rozelle, an Uber driver tried unsuccessfully to wake her up when she fell asleep in the back seat while he was taking her to Maroubra.
The Uber driver called police, who rendered first aid until paramedics arrived.
Suspecting she was on drugs, police searched her clothes and found an “ice” pipe in a small plastic bottle with a clear substance which tests later confirmed to be 5.2 grams of Gamma-butyrolactone (GBL).
Two months later, Finlayson was caught driving at Darlinghurst with ice in her system after being pulled over for a random breath test. She returned a negative result to alcohol but later returned a positive result to having crystal meth in her system, court documents show.
At Downing Centre Local Court today, Finlayson pleaded guilty to one count of driving with illicit drugs present in her system and one count of drug possession.
The former NRL cheerleader starred on Beauty and the Geek in 2011 with Julian Stevensen and is also an ex-Penthouse model.
Since her short TV stint, she has been in and out of courts and rehab for years, even spending more than two years in prison after pleading guilty to selling tens of thousands of dollars worth of drugs in 2020.
The drugs included ice, heroin and GBL, and were sold to undercover cops in three months while she fuelled her $5000-a-week drug addiction, she earlier told the Daily Telegraph.
Following her prison release, Finlayson told journalists she was “enslaved” to Sydney’s drug and party scene which robbed her from half a decade of her life and she was “deeply ashamed and embarrassed” for her actions.
In an effort to turn her life around, she returned to waitressing and modelling.
But just more than a year after walking free from jail, she was again arrested — twice within a week.
In February 2022, police were called to an incident at a Botany home and charged her with two counts of common assault and one count of destroying or damaging property.
She was granted bail, but had that revoked when she was arrested one day before her scheduled court date and charged with possessing identity information to commit an indictable offence.
Court documents revealed she’d stolen the details of three credit cards from attendees at a buck’s party while waitressing. She took photos of the cards stored in bags which she found in a room she got dressed in, the documents showed, before sending those photos to someone else to defraud the men.
Police did not allege Finlayson made any fraudulent transactions herself or benefited financially from stealing the details.
For the identify offences, Finlayson was sentenced to a 12-month community correction order.
Court documents also revealed the assault charges related to an incident in which Finlayson assaulted her brother-in-law with a glass of orange juice during a family argument in February 2022 — when she was arrested twice in one week.
They showed she was living with her family after her release from prison under their rule that she not bring unknown people to the house.
An argument broke out when her sister discovered her boyfriend was hiding under her bed, the documents show, causing her sister to unsuccessfully get the boyfriend to leave.
In response to her sister’s efforts, Finlayson told her to “f**k off” and called her a “fat b**ch”.
When her brother-in-law stepped in attempt to de-escalate the situation, the facts state Finlayson threw a glass of juice at his head.
The glass hit him above his right eye and fell to the ground.
Minutes later, Finlayson was dragged out of the house by her sister, the facts read.
Finlayson pleaded guilty to assault but the charge was dismissed on mental health grounds after she completed a three-week rehabilitation program.
She will next face court on November 4.
— With NCA Newswire