The ACT Supreme Court jury took about two hours to return the verdict for Javarne Saipaini, who had pleaded not guilty to making a demand accompanied by a threat to cause serious harm.

A crowd of Mr Saipani's family and friends sobbed on hearing the verdict.

Mr Saipaini expelled a breath of air and smiled.

The man's defence barrister James Stewart, who was instructed by Jacob Robertson of Sharman Robertson solicitors, asked the judge that Mr Saipani be released from custody.

Justice Chrissa Loukas-Karlsson made the order, and the two corrections officers left from their position at Mr Saipani's side.

Earlier on Friday, Mr Stewart had told the jury that the alleged victim was a crook and a liar.

"There is no way to shiny it up or polish it up," he said.

"You can't have honest crooks."

The distributor claimed to be making 10 to 50 thousand dollars a week, the barrister said.

"Do you think that a 25 year old is capable of that without being squished?" he said.

"It is a ripping yarn, and nothing less."

Mr Stewart said the man had first said the debt was $100,000 before it ballooned to $200,000 during the trial. The man had also made fresh allegations during the trial that Mr Saipani had threatened to kill him.

"It's a ripping yarn, he can't even be consistent with his own lies," Mr Stewart said.

He said the witness had good reasons to lie, including increasing the perceived threat against him to convince his law-abiding brother to take out a loan, and to convince the dealing boss to call off Mr Saipani.

But prosecutors said the head of a Canberra drug dealing ring was in a desperate situation when he called in his close childhood friend Mr Saipani to standover the senior distributor for money.

The court has heard the drug ring head was in debt to Sydney suppliers and chasing up his senior distributor to in turn chase up the money owed to him by dealers lower down the chain.

Prosecutor Mark Fernandez told the jury in his closing submissions that the distributor was not responding to the dealer's demand with the urgency he needed. The situation was getting worse.

The money was not coming up the chain and the group was being denied narcotics, and so denied the ability to make the money they needed.

Mr Fernandez said Mr Saipani was "just the bloke to up the ante on the demands [the dealer] was making" on his distributor.

He told the court the distributor met with Mr Saipani one day last year where he hopped into the Subaru outside his mother's Watson home.

The distributor had told the court that Mr Saipani pulled out a sawn-off shotgun and said words to the effect of "pay up or I'll shoot your leg off".

It was, Mr Fernandez, conceded, "a fantastic story" when considered on its own.

But it was not on its own, he said, pointing to the pressures the group faced from drug dealing suppliers.

The prosecutor said the alleged victim had "freaked out" and immediately complained about what happened to his more senior dealer, who had told the court the alleged victim appeared very "distressed".