Dino Scarpantoni, who ran $10m drug factory while on parole, has sentence reduced A GLENELG man who ran a $10 million methylamphetamine factory while on parole for other drug offences has had his sentence reduced. Dino Scarpantoni was jailed for a minimum of 20 years in June this year after a jury found him guilty of manufacturing a large commercial quantity of methylamphetamine for sale. The Court of Criminal Appeal reduced Scarpantoni's nonparole period to 13 years yesterday following a partially successful legal challenge. During his trial, the District Court was told investigators raided a "drug factory" that had been set up by Scarpantoni, finding enough chemicals to make between 5.4kg and 8kg of methylamphetamine, worth up to $10 million. Scarpantoni, who was on home detention bail at the time of the alleged offending, was ordered to serve 25 years' jail with a 20-year nonparole period. Chief Justice Chris Kourakis and Justices John Sulan and Ann Vanstone upheld Scarpantoni's appeal against his sentence in a judgment handed down yesterday. But they dismissed an appeal against his conviction, in which Scarpantoni claimed the judge had erred in failing to direct the jury that prosecutors had to prove his intention was to manufacture a large commercial quantity of methylamphetamine. The offending in this case was extremely serious. The manufacture of controlled drugs is a cause of grave social harm," they said. General and personal deterrence are significant in circumstances such as this case. That being said, the sentence imposed on the defendant was, in our view, manifestly excessive in the circumstances. They said that although Scarpantoni's role in the drug manufacturing was important, they could not rule out that other people with an equal or greater responsibility were involved. "The sentence imposed by the judge leaves little room for an appropriate sentence for the worst kind of offending of this nature," they say. It cannot be said that this defendant's involvement was such that he should be regarded as near the worst offender for the worst offence of this type. Scarpantoni's head sentence was reduced to 17 years, four months and three days with a nonparole period of 13 years.