The shoe importer, 40, had been living the life of a high-flyer in a deluxe inner-city apartment when he murdered his fiancee Lisa Cecelia Harnum in 2012.

But 12 years earlier, Gittany was sentenced to three years of periodic detention after police found him with 55 ecstasy tablets in a black Porsche when they pulled the car over for a random breath test in Sydney's eastern suburbs.

Court documents reveal police noticed a nervous Gittany sitting in the passenger seat of the car, which was stopped on Manning Road at Double Bay on March 29, 2000.

An officer noticed a bulge in his pants and asked him what he was hiding.

Gittany pulled out a wad of mostly $50 notes. Then he bolted.

He was chased to nearby Wallaroy Road, where he was seen to dump a plastic container in a garden bed.

It contained 55 white tablets stamped with “Y2K”.

He jumped the fence of a house nearby and tried to hide in the front yard but a security light came on and gave away his hiding spot.

Police arrested Gittany and found he had stuffed $4500 down his pants and a further $707.60 in his back pocket.

He was charged at Paddington police station and later pleaded guilty in the NSW District Court to the charge of supplying a prohibited drug.

Gittany was sentenced to three years of periodic detection with a non-parole period of two years.

He was to be released on parole in November 2003.

His arrest at age 28 came after a number of run-ins with police during his teenage years.

The killer had already served 2½ years' periodic detention in 1995 after he bit the ear of a senior detective who was trying to arrest him over stolen goods.

Even as he awaited trial for murdering his former ballerina fiancee, Gittany was looking for new ways to make money - in March this year he registered the intriguing business name Sex Candy.

When Ms Harnum died, he was living in a luxury apartment block where rents are upwards of $1500 a week, but during the trial he was living in the city's west.

Indications are that his online women's shoe business had mixed success. Online traffic reports, which can be unreliable, suggest that shoecandy.com.au received only a modest number of visitors each week.

There is still no indication if Gittany will appeal against the verdict. His sentence will be handed down in February.