Seamus John Neary says he was storing marijuana for a friend and decided to sell some of it, but he had no agreement in place to traffic marijuana.

Neary, 25, testified in his own defence Thursday in Saskatoon Court of Queen’s Bench, where he’s on trial for trafficking marijuana in an amount over three kilograms. He admitted to selling four pounds of marijuana (1.8 kg), a crime which carries a significantly lower penalty.

He was charged in February 2014 after police followed drug traffickers to his home, then obtained a search warrant and found a pound of marijuana in Neary’s front closet and another 13 pounds (5.9 kg) in a storage locker Neary was renting. Police also seized seven pounds of marijuana from the men they saw leaving Neary’s home with backpacks stuffed full of pot.

The former University of Saskatchewan Huskie football player said his invitation to the 2014 CFL Combine — the evaluation camp where CFL teams scout prospective players prior to the CFL draft — was withdrawn after officials learned of his “legal complications.”

Neary testified that sometime in January 2014, a friend of his from B.C., 59-year-old Robert William Nicholson, was in Saskatoon and they met for lunch. Neary said Nicholson told him he had 18 pounds of marijuana in his van, which Neary said he believed was five pounds over Nicholson’s possession limit under his medical marijuana license (although in actuality, Nicholson had no licence to possess marijuana at that time, which was revealed during Nicholson’s testimony later in the day).

Neary said he offered to let Nicholson store the marijuana in Neary’s storage locker after Nicholson said he was stressed about having that amount on him. A few weeks later, Neary said he decided to help his friend out by taking some of the marijuana and selling it to a drug dealer, without Nicholson’s knowledge.

“Rob had told me that he didn’t need that amount, and I knew that he was over (his possession limit), so I thought I was doing him a favour of taking five pounds … back to my residence,” Neary testified.

Neary said he kept one pound — he testified he had a medical marijuana licence at the time but he has since destroyed the document and couldn’t bring it to court — and sold four pounds to a drug dealer from whom he had bought marijuana a couple of times. When the drug dealer and another man came to pick up the marijuana on Feb. 5, 2014, Neary said he saw another three pounds of pot in their backpacks.

He said the dealer didn’t pay him for the weed at that time, but they had an agreement for Neary to pick up $8,400 in payment about a week later. Neary testified that $1,000 in cash police found in his kitchen was rent money, not proceeds of crime, and that he decided to do the drug deal to help pay for tuition.

Neary’s trial continues with closing arguments on Friday.

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