Lino Matteo is creating his very own definition of revolving door justice.

The former CEO of Mount Real Corp. was ordered on Thursday to turn himself in within 24 hours to the Cowansville Institution, a medium-security federal penitentiary in the Eastern Townships. He is to resume serving the five-year prison term he received last November following his conviction in a case where he was found to have violated 270 counts of Quebec’s Securities Act. If he does show up at the penitentiary on Friday as ordered, it will be the third time in two years as he continues to appeal his convictions in two major fraud cases.

A few weeks after he was sentenced last year, a judge agreed to a request that Matteo be freed while he appealed the case brought against him by the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), the provincial securities regulator. Matteo was found to have run what amounted to a Ponzi scheme through his firm as he bilked investors out of more than $130 million. Some of the 1,600 victims lost their life savings.

Matteo’s appeal did not challenge the evidence brought against him, but was based on a technicality. On Thursday afternoon, Superior Court Justice François Dadour dismissed the appeal and a lawyer from the AMF asked that Matteo be taken into custody immediately. She noted that the judge who agreed to allow Matteo to be released on conditions in December included a requirement that he be present in court when the decision on the appeal was delivered. The AMF lawyer argued the only conclusion to be drawn from that condition was that Matteo should be taken into custody right away if he lost the appeal.

Matteo’s lawyer, George Calaritis, countered that Matteo has respected all the conditions he has been ordered to follow since 2010, when he was charged in a criminal case involving investor fraud at Cinar Corp., and that if he failed to report to the penitentiary his family would risk a considerable financial loss through a bond his wife agreed to with the Court.

“He has always respected his conditions,” Calaritis said. “He wants to be able to say goodbye to his parents. They are of a certain age. They are over 80.”

Dadour agreed with Calaritis’s request after noting that the AMF lawyers in the case offered no evidence that Matteo should have been taken into custody immediately.

The expression “revolving door” is used by criminologists to describe an offender’s recidivism. In 1988, it became a common expression in North America after it was used in an ad during the U.S. presidential campaign by the Republicans to help George H.W. Bush defeat Michael Dukakis. The ad is often referred to as the turning point in that campaign.

In December 2016, Matteo was allowed to walk out of a federal penitentiary for the first time after a judge agreed he should be released while he appealed his conviction in the Cinar case. Matteo was sentenced to an eight-year prison term, during the summer of 2016, after he was convicted of fraud and forgery. In that case, investors were defrauded out of more than $120 million. The Quebec Court of Appeal is scheduled to hear the appeal next year.

Janet Watson, an investor who lost $68,000 by investing in Mount Real Corp. was present on Thursday when Dadour delivered his decision.

“I am happy with (Dadour’s) decision, but I would have liked to have seen (Matteo) be taken away immediately,” Watson said afterward. The fraud victim has taken on the responsibility of providing updates to the many other people who were bilked through Mount Real Corp. and Cinar.

She sighed when informed that Calaritis plans to bring the AMF case before the Quebec Court of Appeal, but pledged to be there when he does.

“I’m going to keep this up,” she said. “You have to see this through to the end.”

pcherry@postmedia.com

Related

• Lino Matteo gets five years for Ponzi scheme at Mount Real
• Cinar fraud case sentencing: Ronald Weinberg gets nine years; Xanthoudakis and Matteo eight

A man who mugged three people in the West Island last year, including a 92-year-old woman while he was out on bail, was sentenced on Thursday to an eight-year prison term.

Marino Conti, 63, was residing in Pointe-Claire when he robbed three people in an attempt to feed his addiction to crack cocaine. His victims included the 92-year-old woman, who had to be taken to a hospital to be treated for high blood pressure, and another elderly woman who used a cane to get around when she was robbed on Feb. 22, 2017.

“If you tell anyone, I will kill you,” Conti told one of his victims after he snatched her purse. He used a fake revolver to scare his victims.

Conti, a heavy-set man, registered little reaction as Quebec Court Judge Linda Despots summarized the evidence in his case before delivering the sentence. Between November and March, he pleaded guilty to five counts of robbery and two counts of theft as well as a series of related charges.

As part of the sentencing process, Conti said he suffered from anxiety most of his life and fell into a depression after his marriage ended in divorce in 2007. He began using crack cocaine and abused the drug to a point where he lost his job as a trucker. In 2014, after having lost everything he had that was of any value, he carried out a series of robberies.

He was arrested by the Montreal police that same summer and was released.

While the 2014 case was still pending, he decided to undergo drug addiction therapy and succeeded, Despots said while reading from her decision. His personal life changed significantly again after a relative he had been residing with decided to move out. Conti blamed the change for his return to using crack cocaine again in 2017.

He admitted he was high when he mugged the women and that his motive for the robberies was to get money to buy more crack.

Prosecutor Sylvie Dulude had requested that Conti be sentenced to a prison term of up to 12 years. But Despots noted that Conti had no previous criminal record and that he had made efforts to address what contributed most to his crimes — his addiction to drugs.

“But the Court cannot set aside the number of events and the number of (victims) involved,” the judge said before sentencing Conti to a series of prison terms he will have to serve consecutively. The time Conti has already served behind bars while awaiting the outcome of his case was calculated to be 27 months, which means he has 69 months left to serve.

His lawyer, Alan Guttman, said he found the sentence to be high. He noted that Paul Thomas Bryntwick, 67, one of Canada’s more notorious bank robbers, received the same overall sentence on Wednesday, at the same courthouse, for his role in a carefully planned robbery where two armoured car guards were threatened at gunpoint and tied up before Bryntwick and an accomplice made off with $170,000.

“I think it’s a little steep taking into consideration (Conti) had no record and a drug problem,” Guttman said, while adding he will go through the decision carefully before he decides whether to appeal it or not.

pcherry@postmedia.com

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A man with a long record of drug-related offences made his first court appearance on Friday in a murder case where the police have yet to identify the victim.

The charge sheet filed against Sébastien Carrara, 42, accusing him of second-degree murder, is unusual in that he is accused of killing someone who has yet to be identified.

The victim, believed to be a man in his 40s, was stabbed near the intersection of Berri St. and Viger Ave. around 7 a.m. on Thursday. By the time police arrived, the person who stabbed the victim had fled. The victim was taken to a hospital, but was declared dead shortly after he arrived.

Carrara made a brief appearance before a judge at the Montreal courthouse Friday afternoon and was ordered to remain detained until his case returns to court on Oct. 25. The address listed on his charge sheet is a centre in the Mercier—Hochelaga-Maisonneuve borough that treats young drug addicts and alcoholics.

At the time of his arrest, Carrara was a wanted man. A warrant for his arrest was issued last month from a courthouse in Sorel, where he faces charges of credit card fraud. He was also on probation as part of a sentence Carrara received last year in a different credit card fraud case. Besides being sentenced to three years of probation on June 29, 2017, he was ordered to pay back nearly $4,000 as restitution and to carry out 100 hours of community work.

Between 2009 and 2015, Carrara was convicted of drug trafficking related offences in three different cases where he ended up with sentences that involved jail time.

pcherry@postmedia.com

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• Man arrested following fatal stabbing in Montreal

Christine Brooks lost more than just her son when her boyfriend killed him in a drunken rage with a spear in Lachine three years ago.

A short letter full of painful details written by Brooks was read into the record at the Montreal courthouse on Friday while Superior Court Justice Françcois Dadour heard sentencing arguments in the homicide case against Philippe Gloutney, 44, a man who stabbed Brooks and killed her 38-year-old son Lee-Christopher Larocque on Nov. 6, 2015.

Although he was initially charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder, with his jury trial days from starting, Gloutney was able to plead guilty last month to the reduced charges of manslaughter and aggravated assault.

Larocque was killed on Brooks’s birthday, and hours before the tragedy occurred, she, Gloutney and Larocque began drinking vodka and beer together before she and Gloutney headed off, at around 6 p.m., to her sister’s house for a party. When they returned shortly after 11 p.m., Gloutney was very intoxicated. He and Larocque argued and the dispute ended with Gloutney stabbing the 38-year-old several times with a spear he had made. He also stabbed Brooks through her right arm.

“The day that my son was killed my life was changed forever,” Brooks wrote in the letter. She described her current life as one she now lives in fear of other men and in social isolation.

“My family blames me for the death of my son,” Brooks wrote. She added that her mother doesn’t speak to her any more. Like Gloutney, Larocque had a serious problem with alcohol. Gloutney and Brooks were previously in an amorous relationship, but had been merely living together for four years when Larocque was killed. He had moved in with his mother and Gloutney after losing his apartment and the situation, coupled with drinking, placed a strain on the relationship between the two men.

“The major thing now is the why. Why did you kill my son instead of leaving,” Brooks wrote. “I feel broken inside and I am tired of the pain.”

Dadour heard testimony from two of Larocque’s brothers, including one who said he blamed himself for what happened because Larocque had told him weeks before he was killed that living in the same apartment with Gloutney was not going well.

Gloutney also testified on Friday and provided a long list of all the Alcoholics Anonymous meetings he has attended while detained.

“You did nothing wrong,” Gloutney said as he read aloud from a letter intended for Brooks even though she was not present in court. “I love you and always will. I’m sorry for all the pain.”

Gloutney also addressed Laroque’s relatives who were present in the courtroom and said: “I don’t expect you will ever forgive me.”

“Never will,” replied one of Larocque’s brothers very quickly.

Prosecutor Jasmine Guillaume asked that Gloutney receive an overall prison term of 15 years. She asked that the homicide and Brooks’s stabbing be treated as separate events even though judges in Canada traditionally have considered similar cases as one event where the offender should be sentenced once. Guillaume asked that Gloutney be sentenced to 12 years for killing Larocque and another three years to be served consecutively for the assault on Brooks.

Defence lawyer Jean-Louis Poulard argued that the homicide cases Guillaume cited as precedents to support her argument did not compare to one where a heavily intoxicated person ends up stabbing two people in a fit of rage.

“We don’t know what happened that night,” Poulard said in reference to how Gloutney remembers little of what provoked the argument with Larocque. Poulard also described Gloutney as “a man who is sincerely remorseful,” while recommending an overall sentence of nine years.

Dadour is scheduled to make his decision next Friday.

pcherry@postmedia.com

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A West Island tattoo artist who had sex with troubled minors inside his shop has been denied parole because he refuses to recognize what he did was criminal.

Rowan McKenzie, 49, was sentenced to a nine-month prison term in May after he reluctantly pleaded guilty to having sex with two girls who were 14 and 15 at the time.

The girls first visited the Pierrefonds parlour in 2013 to get tattoos without having their parents’ permission. They returned a week later and performed oral sex on McKenzie while he was aware they were under 16, the age of consent in Canada. The girls returned separately and had sex with him again.

One of the girls told her brother what was going, and he contacted the police.

Rowan McKenzie.

The girls were unaware McKenzie was on the national sex-offender registry. In 2007, he was convicted of having sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl inside a different parlour.

In February, when McKenzie pleaded guilty in the more recent case, he said: “I just know I’m pleading guilty to things I don’t agree with. That’s all I have to say.”

A decision by the provincial parole board — the Commission québécoise des libérations conditionnelles — says McKenzie “claims to have committed errors, not crimes.”

McKenzie denies having manipulated the girls. However, this year, two of his victims told the Montreal Gazette he took advantage of them when he realized they were experiencing turmoil at home.

According to the parole board, McKenzie was turned down to take part in a specialized program to treat sexual delinquency because of his reluctance to admit what he did was a crime.

McKenzie was unable to take part in another program because it was available only in French and he is a unilingual anglophone.

pcherry@postmedia.com

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• Sexual abuse: Women use social media to warn teens about West Island tattoo artist
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A Montreal man with a long record of sexually abusing women and girls has been ordered to spend another year in a halfway house as a means to control the risk he represents of reoffending.

The Parole Board of Canada made the decision last week requiring that Robert Laramée, 55, not only reside at a halfway house, but that he be required to return to it every night.

The condition was first imposed in 2016 when Laramée finished serving the entirety of a 39-month sentence he received for sexually abusing two women he had dated. Both women testified that Laramée would wrap his hands around their necks during sex and told them that it turned him on.

He did the same thing to another woman in 2001 but in that case the woman blacked out after Laramée choked her. Laramée was also convicted of sexually abusing two young girls in that same case.

He was also investigated as a suspect in the 1999 disappearance of Jolène Riendeau, a 10-year-old girl who disappeared from Pointe-St-Charles on April 12, 1999. Her remains were discovered in 2010 by workers excavating near a support for a span leading to the Champlain Bridge.

Months after the girl’s remains were found, Laramée was arrested by Montreal police on May 6, 2011, and questioned about Riendeau’s murder but was never charged. In June 2012, Laramée was interviewed on LCN and vigorously denied that he killed the 10-year-old girl. He also said he has refused many requests from homicide investigators that he undergo a lie-detector test. The homicide case remains unsolved and a Montreal police source recently told the Montreal Gazette that there were other men considered as potential suspects who refused to be questioned by police when Jolène disappeared.

In June 2012, Jolène’s mother, Dolores Soucy, assaulted Laramée at the Montreal courthouse after he was convicted in one of the cases he is serving a sentence for. Laramée lived near Riendeau’s family when the girl disappeared and his daughter attended the same school as Jolène. In 2014, Soucy pleaded guilty to the assault and was sentenced to an absolute discharge.

When Laramée was sentenced for abusing his two most recent victims, he was also declared a long-term offender. With the designation, which lasts for 10 years, the Parole Board of Canada has been able to impose conditions on Laramée since his sentence expired in 2016. Besides the requirement that he reside at a halfway house, Laramée is also not allowed to be in the presence of girls under the age of 16 unless they are accompanied by an adult who is aware of his criminal record.

“You have participated in several programs targeting your delinquency, you are seen by a psychologist, a psychiatrist and you occasionally participate in a support group. Despite a significant investment in resources with the goal of helping you, you still show significant difficulties in putting into place the tools and the strategies needed to control your risk factors. You continue to show that your cycle of delinquency remains present in certain circumstances,” the parole board noted in the summary of its decision.

Experts who have evaluated Laramée in the past have described him as a controlling person and a potential sexual sadist. A summary of the decision made by the parole board last week notes that, following his release from a penitentiary in September 2016, he became a nuisance to his parole officer by calling the person between five to eight times a day. By December of that same year, he was sent back to a penitentiary and ended up spending another three months behind bars.

When he was released to a halfway house in 2017 he could only hold down a job for 10 days before he was fired. He has been returned behind bars at least twice since then, including earlier this year after he was involved in a minor altercation with a roommate at a halfway house.

pcherry@postmedia.com

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A Quebec Court judge found himself before a panel of his peers who will determine if he was out of line when he yelled at a prison guard during a hearing at the Montreal courthouse last year.

Judge Jean-Paul Braun, who retired this year, appeared before the Conseil de la magistrature du Québec on Monday and is scheduled to have another hearing before the judicial council that oversees the behaviour of judges, for comments made in a different case, in the coming weeks.

On April 20, 2017, Braun was assigned to one of the so-called “high volume” rooms at the courthouse where judges routinely find themselves presiding over a roll with more than 40 accused scheduled have formality hearings. The rooms can sometimes become chaotic, especially when an accused suddenly decides to plead guilty and changes the overall schedule.

That was what Braun was dealing with when a lawyer representing a couple from France, charged with attempting to smuggle tobacco into Canada, informed Braun that the case could be resolved if the lawyer could talk to the man and the woman together at the courthouse. The lawyer informed Braun that the matter was urgent because the couple’s three children were in France. While sitting in the morning, Braun spent 10 minutes trying to arrange the meeting but was informed it was impossible. An internal rule at the Montreal courthouse does not allow people of different genders who are detained to be in the same area.

Braun was aware that judges in similar situations were able to order that empty courtrooms be used for lawyers to meet briefly with more than one client. When the case returned before Braun in the afternoon he had hoped the problem could be resolved. But when he asked Yolanda Fleurimar, a detention-centre guard who was unaware of what happened in the morning, if arrangements were made she replied that the rules that guide her work wouldn’t allow it.

“You have no power here,” Braun yelled as he reacted to Fleurimar and suggested she could be charged with contempt of court. “Look here, the boss here is me!”

Ultimately the accused were able to use an empty courtroom to meet with their lawyer and they pleaded guilty to the charges they faced the same day. Recordings of what Braun said in the interim revealed he felt bad about losing his temper.

“Anger is not a good counsellor,” Braun later told a lawyer involved in the case. He also said that he rarely gets angry but he didn’t apologize to Fleurimar in person.

On Monday, Fleurimar, who is now studying law, said she decided to file a complaint against the judge after having talked to her superior.

“I felt humiliated — like the position I held meant nothing,” Fleurimar told the council. “I was angry and I was frustrated. I had difficulty understanding why I would be found to be in contempt of court.”

Braun did not testify at his hearing. His lawyer, Louis Belleau, characterized what happened as a “regrettable” situation and argued that if Fleurimar had been aware of the effort Braun had made earlier in the day, the situation could have turned out differently.

Pierre Laurin, a lawyer who argued on behalf of the council, said Braun violated the ethics code of his profession by not maintaining the serenity of his courtroom. He asked that the judge receive a reprimand. The council will deliberate before delivering their decision.

In October, Braun is scheduled to have another hearing to address comments he made concerning a sexual assault victim. On May 3, 2017, while convicting a taxi driver named Carlo Figaro of having sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl, the judge commented on her physical appearance and whether she might have been “charmed” by Figaro before he licked her face and groped her.

When the comments were published by the Journal de Montréal, Quebec Justice Minister Stéphanie Vallée reacted by saying she found the comments unacceptable and said that she would file a complaint with the council.

pcherry@postmedia.com

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The RCMP believes that more than 80 kilograms of cocaine seized off a ship at the port in Valleyfield last weekend was destined for Toronto and Vancouver.

According to a statement issued by the Mounties, a shipment 81 kilos of what they suspect was cocaine was found inside the hold of a vessel from Guyana that has arrived at the port, which is west of Montreal. The seizure was part of an investigation by the RCMP and Canada Border Services Agency.

Four people were arrested when the shipment was seized and two of them, Roldan De Gorio Tito, 36, and Nazir Ahmad Hussain, 48, have been charged with conspiracy to import drugs for the purpose of trafficking.

pcherry@postmedia.com

A sentence of 18 months has been handed down to a contractor who was found guilty of manslaughter earlier this year for the death of an employee buried by a collapse during work on a sewer line.

Quebec Court Judge Pierre Dupras delivered his decision, considered to be a precedent in Quebec, on Tuesday at the Montreal courthouse. Sylvain Fournier was also sentenced to two years of probation after the prison term expires. He is the owner of S. Fournier Excavation Inc., which was doing work at a home on 54th Ave. in Lachine on April 3, 2012 when Gilles Lévesque died.

Fournier, who is appealing his manslaughter conviction, did not testify during his sentence hearing.

An expert who testified during Fournier’s trial described several unsafe factors on the job site: the slopes of the excavation were too steep and no system was used to support the sides of the pit to prevent it from collapsing.

In his March 1 decision to convict Fournier, Dupras concluded that by ignoring safety obligations Fournier “demonstrated an unruly recklessness or foolishness toward the security and the life of Mr. Lévesque.” The judge also criticized Fournier as having failed to consider what were “foreseeable consequences” in the lead up to the collapse. Lévesque was completely buried after the trench he was working in collapsed.

Fournier himself was buried to his waist and both of his legs fractured. He was in a coma for two days and hospitalized for nearly two weeks.

Prosecutor Sarah Sylvain-Laporte had requested that Fournier be sentenced to a 42-month prison term but could find no precedent in Quebec law to support the recommendation. The prosecutor noted that Lévesque had worked for Fournier since 2004 without having obtained the competency cards required to do excavation work.

The Crown presented three witnesses when sentence arguments were made, including Lévesque’s daughter, Karine Gallant Lévesque.

“The Court is, naturally, sensitive to the misfortune that afflicted the family of Gilles Lévesque and is aware that nothing can repair this catastrophe. (It) hopes that (his family) can, despite all, find peace and serenity,” Dupras wrote in his nine-page decision. The judge also said the injuries Fournier suffered in the collapse factored into his decision.

Karine Gallant Lévesque at the site of the collapse in Lachine on April 3, 2012, in which her father was killed.

Fournier’s lawyer, Brigitte Martin, argued for a 90-day sentence followed by three years of probation and asked that Fournier be able to serve it on weekends. Fournier was also willing to make a $5,000 donation to a charity and carry out 240 hours of community service. The attorney argued that Fournier has already been stigmatized by the manslaughter conviction.

pcherry@postmedia.com

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Nellie Angutiguluk remained in a relationship with Kwasi Benjamin for more than a year before he killed her even though he had tried to end her life before.

“He tried to kill me. He wanted to kill me,” Angutiguluk told Montreal police Constable Jean-Philippe Tseng-Valiquette on Jan. 4, 2014, when he found her standing completely nude and covered in blood inside the couple’s apartment in Côte-des-Neiges after she had called 911.

Tseng-Valiquette testified on Wednesday at the Montreal courthouse as sentencing arguments finally began a full six months after Benjamin was convicted by a jury of second-degree murder for having killed Angutiguluk on May 18, 2015.

The sentencing stage of the case was delayed for a few reasons. The presiding judge in the trial, Superior Court Justice Michael Stober, fell ill after the jury delivered its verdict. He died of cancer in August. Benjamin’s defence lawyer also asked that Benjamin undergo a psychiatric evaluation before sentencing arguments could begin.

Justice Pierre Labrie, the new judge in the trial, was presented with evidence that the jury did not hear because it involved charges that were pending against Benjamin when he was charged with killing Angutiguluk, a 29-year-old Inuk woman originally from Nunavik.

Benjamin, 32, automatically received a life sentence when he was convicted of second-degree murder. Labrie will determine how many years Benjamin is required to serve behind bars before he is eligible for parole. Defence lawyer Louis Miville Deschênes asked that his client serve the minimum — 10 years.

Prosecutor Jean-Philippe MacKay asked that Benjamin serve at least 17 years. He noted that Louis Morrissette, the psychiatrist who evaluated Benjamin, predicts he will probably require a long stay at a halfway house before he can be released to society.

During his trial, Benjamin testified that when he was a child in Trinidad, and showed signs of having what might be autism, doctors told him he would never walk or learn to speak. He said: “the only doctor I believe in is God.” Morrissette said on Wednesday that Benjamin still has no faith in experts who might help him with his problem with alcohol.

The couple were still together in May 2015 even though Benjamin had agreed to follow a series of conditions that he not be in her presence or communicate with Angutiguluk while charged with the January 2014 assault.

On Jan. 4, 2014, she placed a call to 911 but did not manage to say much. A recording of the call was played for Labrie on Wednesday. Before Angutiguluk hung up a male voice could be heard repeating twice: “Give me the phone.”

Tseng-Valiquette and his partner were dispatched. The constable said that when they arrived they noticed a man at the entrance of the couple’s apartment building. The man kept his hands inside his coat pockets and appeared nervous as he walked past the police officers. Tseng-Valiquette said he asked the man, who turned out to be Benjamin, if he was the person who had called 911. Benjamin said he didn’t make the call but appeared nervous. The constable said he then asked Benjamin if he could see his hands and he complied.

“His hands were covered in blood,” Tseng-Valiquette said adding he arrested Benjamin on the spot. He said he placed Benjamin in his police vehicle and then went inside the building. That is when he found Angutiguluk covered in blood. She refused to file a complaint against Benjamin, Tseng-Valiquette said.

Despite the victim’s reluctance to file a complaint, the Montreal police proceeded with the investigation and Benjamin was charged. A detective who was assigned to the case said she had difficulty locating Angutiguluk to hand her a subpoena to testify. She said she learned the couple were living in a different apartment and that when she knocked on the door, in September 2014, Benjamin claimed from behind the apartment door that Angutiguluk had moved away. The detective said she heard a woman’s voice from behind the door and decided to wait in the building’s lobby for a while.

A woman matching the assault victim’s description eventually came downstairs and the detective asked if she was Angutiguluk. The detective said the woman initially claimed to be Angutiguluk’s cousin but as the conversation continued it was apparent it was actually her. The detective said at one point Benjamin arrived in the lobby, with his toothbrush in his mouth, and listened to their conversation.

A prosecutor later decided to file charges alleging that Benjamin had breached the conditions of his release in the January 2014 assault. On May 11, 2015, one week before he killed Angutiguluk, Benjamin was charged with assaulting her a second time.

Angutiguluk’s cousin, Lisa Koperqualuk, was the only person to testify on the murder victim’s behalf on Wednesday. Koperqualuk, the founder of Saturviit, the Inuit Women’s Association of Nunavik, conceded she and her cousin were not close.

Instead, Koperqualuk used the opportunity to draw attention to the problems many Inuk women face when they move to Montreal, especially those who have problems with alcohol.

“Nellie’s death is a tragedy,” Koperqualak said while decrying the lack of shelters for women who are unable to quit drinking. “She is one among many. This is a terrible tragedy and a terrible injustice.

“I worry. Where are we going? It’s getting worse.”

Labrie is scheduled to make his decision on Oct. 31.

pcherry@postmedia.com

Related

• Kwasi Benjamin found guilty in death of Nellie Angutiguluk
• Accused in murder trial showed up at victim's memorial with 'new girlfriend,' Crown says

A career criminal who staged a brazen robbery at a bank in Mile End while he was drunk and high on cocaine is staring down the possibility of an indefinite sentence after having recently undergone a psychiatric evaluation that determined he should be declared a dangerous offender.

Alain Ste-Marie, 47, was convicted in March on nine charges related to the robbery during which he and a woman stormed into a branch of the Toronto Dominion Bank on Bernard Ave. on Sept. 2, 2016, but made off with only $410. Last month, as part of the sentencing stage of the case, prosecutor Geneviève Boutet asked Quebec Court Judge Guylaine Rivest to grant the harshest sentence possible in Canada — a dangerous offender designation with an indefinite sentence.

If Rivest agrees with the request, it will ultimately be up to the Parole Board of Canada to determine when Ste-Marie should be released.

Boutet’s request was based on Ste-Marie’s lengthy criminal record and an evaluation done in June by psychiatrist Louis Morrissette.

“(Ste-Marie) is now 47 and he received his first sentence at the age of 20. Following that, it appears there wasn’t a period between 12 to 18 months where he wasn’t incarcerated or under arrest,” Boutet wrote in her request. Ste-Marie, who escaped from detention centres in 1992 and 2007, is quoted in the court document as having told Morrissette: “It is better to rob a bank because the employees are paid to be potential victims.”

Morrissette determined that Ste-Marie should be declared a dangerous offender, writing: “(I)t is impossible to formulate a treatment plan that allows to adequately manage (Ste-Marie’s) high risk of re-offending.”

On Thursday, defence lawyer Catherine Daniel Houle, informed Rivest that Ste-Marie is trying to find another psychiatrist to counter Morrissette’s assessment but hasn’t had any luck yet. The case will return to court next week.

In March, Rivest found Ste-Marie guilty of all nine charges he faced in connection with the Sept. 2, 2016 bank robbery. including armed robbery, conspiracy, using a fake firearm to carry out a crime and breaking and entering. The latter charge involved how Ste-Marie broke into a home on Clark St. in order to hide from the police.

His accomplice in the robbery, Geneviève Dallaire, 37, received an overall sentence of 30 months. She was left with a 12-month prison term after sentencing on Aug. 29, 2017. Dallaire, a former prostitute, stood by at the entrance to the bank armed with a cigarette lighter that looked like a handgun and ordered clients to remain inside.

After they exited the bank, Ste-Marie and Dallaire jumped into a taxi and ordered the driver to flee the area. Within seconds, the taxi was blocked by a police vehicle and the cabbie managed to jump out. Ste-Marie took the wheel and ended up crashing into another car. Dallaire was arrested on the spot following the collision while Ste-Marie fled on foot but was arrested four days later.

Geneviève Dallaire (left) and Alain Ste-Marie at a bank robbery in Mile End on Sept. 2, 2016.

Dallaire and Ste-Marie were also charged as suspects in an earlier bank robbery, carried out on Aug. 18, 2016, on St-Hubert St. Following her arrest in the Mile End robbery, Dallaire was identified for the St-Hubert robbery by a witness based on seeing her photo. She and Ste-Marie were charged with the St-Hubert robbery but were acquitted due to a lack of evidence.

According to a decision made by the Commission québécoise des libérations conditionnelles (CQLC) last year, when Dallaire was turned down for a release, she told the provincial parole board that she and Ste-Marie carried out the Mile End robbery while drunk and high on cocaine. She also said she had not slept for days before the robbery was carried out.

pcherry@postmedia.com

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• Man convicted in Montreal bank robbery could be deemed a dangerous offender

A 49-year-old man who was found to be in possession of the parts required to assemble enough automatic assault rifles to supply a small army was sentenced on Friday to an overall 10-year prison term.

Anatoliy Vdovin, a man who was prone to making rude outbursts while two of his criminal cases were before the courts, shrugged off the sentence Quebec Court Judge Linda Despots delivered at the Montreal courthouse and reminded her that he has requested an appeal of her decision to convict him.

In February 2015, a Montreal police investigator received a call from a member of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) based in Alabama. The ATF agent used the internet to pose as someone interested in purchasing parts for AK47s, an automatic assault rifle originally designed for the Soviet Army.

The ATF agent first ordered five receivers, the body of the rifle, and rails and received a package that originated from Montreal. When the agent paid for the items he learned it was made through a PayPal account linked to Vdovin.

In the weeks that followed, the Montreal police placed Vdovin and St-Léonard resident Vitaly Pohrebniak, 51, under surveillance and that led investigators to a storage locker on Notre Dame St. Vdovin was arrested on the spot while holding packages containing more rifle parts that were about the be shipped to the ATF agent in Birmingham, Ala.

According to the decision Despots delivered on Friday, when police searched the locker they seized “a considerable number of receivers, silencers, large-capacity magazines as well as parts, tools, plans and instructions needed to make automatic or semi-automatic AK47s.” When the police searched Vdovin’s home on Lacombe St. they found evidence linking to the shipments sent to Alabama and a design plan for an AK47 receiver.

Vdovin was ultimately found to be in possession of 900 receivers, 180 silencers and around 25 large capacity magazines.

Éric MacKay, an RCMP expert on firearms who testified during Vdovin’s trial said: “the extraordinary quantity of AK47 (receivers) is most remarkable. To my knowledge it is unique.

“I can only imagine the damage caused by the manufacture and distribution of these firearms on the black market.”

The expert also said that, because of the way the parts were manufactured, a rifle assembled with them would have been impossible to trace.

Vdovin’s only defence at trial was that he believed he had a right to sell the parts. He acted as his own lawyer after he was convicted, on May 3, on counts related to possession and trafficking of firearms and prohibited devices. Pohrebniak was acquitted because Despots determined there was no evidence to indicate he knew what Vdovin was selling.

Having already served 63 months, Vdovin has 57 months left on his prison term.

In January, a jury acquitted Vdovin in a different case where he was accused of using the Westmount Public Library in 2013 to post online ads on Craigslist and another website to offer $1,000 to anyone willing to kill Ian Lafrenière, a member of the Montreal police who was, at the time, the longtime spokesperson for the police force.

pcherry@postmedia.com

Related

• Jury acquits Anatoliy Vdovin, charged with posting ad to have SPVM's Ian Lafrenière killed
• Trial begins for man charged with posting ad to have police spokesperson killed

A 44-year-old Lachine resident received a sentence of more than 12 years on Friday after a Quebec Superior Court judge determined he is remorseful and had expressed sincere regret for having killed his girlfriend’s adult son in a drunken rage.

Philippe Gloutney was facing the possibility of a lengthier sentence because he also stabbed his girlfriend, Christine Brooks, with the same spear he used to kill her 38-year-old son, Lee-Christopher Larocque, on Nov. 6, 2015. Last week Crown prosecutor Jasmine Guillaume asked that Gloutney be required to serve his sentences for manslaughter and aggravated assault consecutively over 15 years: 12 for manslaughter and three for stabbing Brooks. Guillaume argued that serving the two concurrently would “obscure” what happened to the woman. Brooks suffered permanent damage to her right forearm when Gloutney thrust the homemade spear into it, causing a wound 10 centimetres deep.

Defence lawyer Jean-Louis Poulard argued in favour of concurrent sentences and recommended nine years.

All three parties were heavily intoxicated when Gloutney and the victim began to argue that night.

Justice François Dadour dedicated five pages of his 27-page decision to whether Gloutney should have been required to serve his two sentences — 12½ years for manslaughter and four for aggravated assault — consecutively.

While reading from his decision at the Montreal courthouse Friday morning, Dadour said: “After due consideration of the matter, the direct inferences to be drawn from the facts of this case demonstrate a close link, both spatial, chronological and factual, between what happened to Mr. Larocque and Mrs. Brooks. In less than an hour, in a small apartment, in a longer context of intoxication, Mr. Gloutney’s actions took place against the two victims, in part inside the same room and with the usage of the same weapon.

“Given this factual matrix, the scales of the balance tip in favour of exercising judicial discretion in inflicting concurrent sentences.”

Dadour also noted that Gloutney stopped drinking and began attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings while detained for the homicide.

Guillaume later told reporters she was disappointed that Dadour opted for concurrent sentences but said she was satisfied with the overall sentence.

pcherry@postmedia.com

Related

• Lachine man who killed girlfriend's son with a spear to be sentenced
• Lachine man admits to killing girlfriend's son with a spear

A Lachine resident who was the nucleus of a computer savvy network of pedophiles is facing the possibility of being declared a dangerous offender after having been convicted on Friday on child pornography charges and for having sexually abused two young boys while he worked as a teacher in foster homes several years ago.

André Faivre, 70, rarely looked toward Quebec Court Judge Yvan Poulin as he read from a 51-page decision that found the confessed pedophile guilty of 13 charges he faced since January 2016, when the Sûreté du Québec arrested Faivre and 14 other men in Project Malaise. The investigation was focused on men who exchanged photos, essays and other forms of child pornography through a computer network created by Faivre.

Prosecutor Cynthia Gyenizse informed Poulin that she will likely request that Faivre be declared a dangerous or long-term offender when the case enters the sentencing stage in November. Her decision will be based on whatever is contained in a pre-sentencing report ordered by Poulin on Friday. Lawyers from both sides will be expected to announce their positions on how they expect Faivre should be sentenced on Nov. 27. If Faivre is declared a dangerous offender, he could be sentenced to an indefinite prison term.

Faivre, who maintains that being a pedophile is a sexual orientation and therefore should be accepted by society, began the network called Web Bleu in 2003. Members exchanged emails through computer servers Faivre controlled. Beginning in February 2015, the SQ sent an undercover agent to infiltrate the group through Faivre.

The agent, who posed as a pedophile attracted to a boy who lived next door to him, not only uncovered ongoing crimes but was also counselled by Faivre on how he should approach the boy. As the agent and Faivre continued to meet at Faivre’s residence on George V Ave. throughout 2015, the undercover cop learned of past crimes. While he believed he was counselling the agent, Faivre told him how he had performed sexual acts on boys who were in foster homes where Faivre was employed as a teacher.

The SQ found a few boys who were the subjects of Faivre’s stories but one refused to testify in court. On Friday, Poulin convicted Faivre of abusing one boy at a foster home where Faivre worked roughly 35 years ago and another boy at a foster home where Faivre worked between 2000 and 2001. Poulin ordered a publication ban on the identity of the victims and details that could identify them.

Both of the victims testified during Faivre’s trial. One said Faivre would come into his bedroom and perform oral sex on him on a regular basis and did so “about 30 times.” When the man was contacted by the SQ, in 2016, he was shown a photo of himself, when he was a boy, and Faivre. The photo was found in a suitcase the SQ seized from Faivre’s home in 2016. During one of his meetings with the undercover agent, Faivre pulled the suitcase out and showed him some of the 400 photographs it contained of boys, many of them shirtless.

The other victim said Faivre abused him while he was at a foster home with a dozen other boys who were all between the ages of eight and 12. He said the abuse began when he was told to take a shower to calm down. He said Faivre reached inside the shower and touched his penis. The undercover agent found evidence that Faivre considered the boy to have been “his favourite.”

Poulin found Faivre guilty of indecent assault and gross indecency in the case of the first victim and sexual interference and invitation to sexual touching for his abuse of the second victim. Faivre was also convicted on three counts related to how he counselled the undercover agent and a Boy Scout leader on how to sexually abuse minors. Poulin also found Faivre guilty on four counts related to the possession and distribution of child pornography.

Fourteen other men were charged in Project Malaise. All their cases have been resolved.

Eight received sentences that involved prison terms that ranged between time served and five years. One was allowed to serve his sentence in the community.  Four were acquitted after they agreed to sign peace bonds.

Another man who was acquitted was recently convicted in an unrelated case involving minors.

pcherry@postmedia.com

A man who sent a series of emails that caused Concordia University to evacuate three of its buildings last year says he was desperate to avoid doing an exam when he carried out what he now concedes was a terrible idea.

Hisham Saadi, 49, appeared before Quebec Court Judge Mélanie Hebert at the Montreal courthouse as the sentencing stage of his case began on Monday.

In June, Saadi was convicted of having committed acts that, considering the context, were susceptible to causing fear that terrorist acts were about to be committed.

Saadi emailed a series of letters, on March 1, 2017, claiming to be from a group that wanted to target Muslims. The letters, written in French and English, stated that bombs had been hidden in the university and caused the evacuation of three of Concordia’s buildings that day.

Saadi said he sent the letters to several media outlets, besides the university, because he was worried Concordia “would only take it as a bad joke.”

His lawyer Caroline Braun followed that testimony by arguing that Saadi should not be sentenced to a prison term, in part, because his arrest and court proceedings that followed received widespread media coverage. She said the need to send a message and dissuade others from committing a similar crime has already been accomplished by the coverage. She asked that Saadi be sentenced to a prison term he can serve in the community, through house arrest.

Braun’s arguments were followed by a passionate pleading by prosecutor François Allard, who said Saadi should not have been surprised to how much coverage his crime received.

“He used the media,” Allard said while arguing that Saadi deserves a 30-month prison term. “It is his fault. Not the media’s fault.”

During his testimony, Saadi said he was so stressed out over having two midterms scheduled two days apart that he self-medicated by taking three times the dosage of anti-depressants and anti-psychotic medication that he been prescribed to him. He said he couldn’t grasp the consequences of the threats he was sending out.

Allard countered that Saadi took the time to translate the letter and carefully selected media, including the university’s newspapers, to make sure it would get immediate attention.

“Unless you live on another planet you have to know the extent (the threats would have on a university),” Allard said.

Saadi testified that he initially considered pulling a fire alarm just before he was supposed to take his second midterm exam but then figured it “wouldn’t be efficient” because he’d likely be be expected to take the exam later the same day. He said he concocted the idea of making a terrorist threat based on having seen people at Concordia react negatively to posters encouraging Muslim women to wear hijabs.

“From those (negative) comments I decided to mix Islamophobia with terrorism,” Saadi said of the letters that claimed to be from the “Council of conservative citizens of Canada.”

The letters threatened to “detonate once per day small artisanal amateur explosive devices that we planted on two floors” until the university “stops religious activities of all kinds on campus.”

“What is your religion?” Braun asked.

“I am Muslim,” said Saadi, who described his family as “believers, not practising. There is a difference.”

Saadi, who was born in Lebanon and is a Canadian citizen, testified he had to quit a job as a professor in Iraq because of ISIL’s then-growing presence in that country.

Shortly after he returned to Canada he was accepted to do a doctorate in economics at Concordia, which he referred to as “his dream.” But by 2016 that dream was in jeopardy because he had received a failing grade that, according to Saadi, meant he was automatically out of the program. He said he switched to being a temporary student on probation and slipped into a depression.

Saadi said that when he learned he would have to do the two midterms in three days the stress became unbearable and he asked a doctor for a note excusing him from one, but the mental health expert refused his request.

“There was a debate going on within myself. One side was saying I should save my own skin while the other was questioning why I would do this,” Saadi said of his thought process before sending out the letter.

Hébert is scheduled to make her decision on Oct. 5.

pcherry@postmedia.com

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• Terror conviction for making bomb threats to avoid exam at Concordia
• Concordia University bomb threats were sent from laptop at Tim Hortons, Hisham Saadi trial hears

Life has been a struggle for Tina Lyon-Adams ever since she and a friend were struck by a car driven by an impaired driver while the two women were jogging in Hudson three years ago.

On Tuesday, Lyon-Adams struggled to get to the courthouse for what was to be the start of the sentencing stage of the case against Jordan Xavier Taylor, the 26-year-old Hudson resident who admitted in June that he was drunk when he struck the two on June 12, 2015. Lyon-Adams suffered a fractured skull and a severely injured left leg, and Alique Langlois Retolla suffered relatively minor injuries.

The incident occurred on Cambridge St. near Wilshire St. The vehicle ended up slamming into a hydrant and a hydro pole. According to a statement of facts read into the court record in June, Taylor had just come from a golf club. The judge who heard the guilty pleas was also told that people at the club tried to convince him to not drive but he left, losing control of the Volkswagen and hitting the joggers.

Despite still having difficulty getting around, Lyon-Adams showed up at the Valleyfield courthouse on Tuesday only to find out that the sentence hearing would be carried over to January. Taylor was not present in court and his attorney was able to postpone the hearing without having to supply Quebec Court Judge Bertrand St-Arnaud with much in terms of an explanation.

Lyon-Adams told the Montreal Gazette that even a 10-minute ride in a car causes her leg to stiffen up significantly and that it takes a while before she can bend it again. She said that learning of the delay was “a disappointment.” In June, she underwent her 19th operation since being struck.

Taylor has pleaded guilty to two counts of impaired driving causing bodily harm, a Criminal Code offence that carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.

“I was prepared to tell the judge how this has affected my life,” Lyon-Adams said. “It’s bringing me down. I don’t want to always have to be thinking about (Taylor). My whole life is completely affected.”

Lyon-Adams was studying at John Abbott College with plans to become a police officer when she was injured. She said her plans were completely dashed. Because of the severity of her injuries she cannot meet the physical requirements to become a police officer. When she resumed classes in September, she required three chairs to sit down and had difficulty concentrating. She plans to graduate from the CEGEP even though it won’t be in the police technology program.

pcherry@postmedia.com 

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The man gunned down in front of a restaurant in Laval on Tuesday was recently under investigation for drug trafficking in the Abitibi region.

The victim was shot outside the Fusion restaurant on Lévesque Blvd. in the city’s St-Vincent-de-Paul district at around 8 p.m. He was taken to a hospital where he was later declared dead. Witnesses told reporters it appeared that a gunman wearing a mask shot the victim outside the restaurant and shot him again as he apparently tried to find refuge inside the eatery. One witness told CTV News that it appeared the gunman used a firearm equipped with a silencer.

On Wednesday, the Sûreté du Québec identified the victim as Sébastien Vena, a 46-year-old man from Ste-Lucie-des-Laurentides, a small town of 1,300 people about 120 kilometres north of Montreal. The case was originally investigated by Laval police but the jurisdiction was turned over to the SQ because of Vena’s ties to organized crime.

Vena, who is reported to have ties to the Hells Angels, had a criminal record that included a case heard at the St-Jérôme courthouse where he pleaded guilty, on Nov. 30, 2004, to having tried to kill two people. He pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge in the same case and, according to court records, the attempted slayings were investigated by a section of the SQ that targeted organized crime in the Laurentians, Laval and Lanaudière region. Vena tried to kill the two people on Sept. 25, 2004. He was gunned down in Laval on the exact same date 14 years later.

A court decision delivered in June at a courthouse in Val d’Or revealed that Vena and at least two other men were recently under investigation for drug trafficking in the Abitibi region. In December, police officers carried out a series of search warrants related to the investigation and seized three luxury vehicles — a Hummer, a Corvette and a Mercedes C300 — along with more than $100,000 in cash and weapons.

One month after the items were seized, charges had yet to be filed against Vena and the other two men and lawyers representing the trio sought to have information the police used to obtain the seven search warrants turned over to them. The Crown refused to divulge the information because the investigation was ongoing. A judge who heard arguments on the matter ruled against the three men but noted that the information would have to be divulged eventually if they were ever charged.

In 1999, Vena was sentenced to a six-month prison term after the RCMP linked him to a marijuana grow operation based in Quebec City. In 2012, he was sentenced to another six-month prison term, which he was able to serve in the community, after he pleaded guilty to possessing marijuana with the intent to traffic.

A spokesperson for the SQ said that, as of Wednesday evening, no arrests had been made in connection with Vena’s death.

pcherry@postmedia.com

A thief who recently admitted he got a thrill out of breaking into universities in Quebec and Ontario for years has been denied parole, in part because authorities learned he was able to secretly operate a company while serving the 29-month prison term he received last year.

Over the past decade, Gerald Lawson Nicholls, 55, has broken into several universities and other educational institutions between Waterloo, Ont., and Trois-Rivières, a 760-kilometre stretch that runs from Highway 40 in this province and Highway 401 in Ontario.

He had been a wanted man in both provinces for nearly two years until September 2016, when police in either Quebec or Ontario finally caught up to him. By that point, Nicholls had been identified as a suspect in eight break-ins at the University of Waterloo, and at least two others in Kingston (where he broke into Queen’s University) and Belleville (where he broke into Loyalist College) between 2012 and 2014. In most of the cases, computers and related accessories were stolen. When police in Ontario obtained warrants for Nicholls’s arrest, in December 2014, they were at a loss to explain why he would specialize in universities and colleges.

He had been arrested and interrogated by Waterloo Police following one of the earlier break-ins, in July 2012, but was released after providing investigators with a false identity. At the time, Nicholls had just completed a two-year prison term and was on probation as part of a sentence he had received in 2009 for having broken into other schools, including the University of Ottawa where, on March 22, 2009, he was arrested after leading three security guards on a long foot chase after dousing them with pepper-spray. When police located his getaway vehicle parked nearby they found a laptop computer and a safe that had just been stolen from the Université du Québec en Outaouais. As part of his probation, Nicholls was not supposed to set foot inside anything resembling a school for three years.

Gerald Lawson Nicholls, 55, has broken into several universities and other educational institutions between Waterloo, Ont., and Trois-Rivières.

While on the lam in his more recent crime spree, police identified Nicholls as the culprit who pulled off a heist, on Nov. 4, 2012, at the Université du Québec a Trois Rivières. He forced open the door to the university’s cafeteria, snuck into a Tim Horton’s inside and made off with $66,000 after cracking into a safe. In September 2014, he broke into a CEGEP somewhere in Quebec and stole a safe containing $8,000.

On Sept. 25, 2017, Nicholls managed to have all his cases in Ontario and Quebec transferred to the Montreal courthouse where he pleaded guilty to having committed a total of 18 break-ins, including a few in Montreal. He received a four-year sentence but with time served factored in he was left with the 29-month prison term he is currently serving.

Late last week, the Parole Board of Canada turned down Nicholls’s request for full parole. According to a written summary of the parole board’s decision, during his hearing on Thursday, Nicholls “expressed being motivated by a desire for easy money, instant gratification, excitement and the thrill of committing break ins.”

The parole board was also informed that Nicholls was somehow able to operate his own “unregistered and undeclared” company while serving his sentence. The summary does not identify what type of company it is, but when Nicholls was arrested in 2009, in Ottawa, he was reported to be a graphic designer.

Nicholls told the parole board he planned to continue to be self-employed while out on parole and claimed to have “significant savings” at his disposal. He was turned down for the release because he refused to disclose any details of his financial situation to parole officers.

“You will face multiple stressors in the community, and you have few tools at your disposal to address them,” the parole board wrote in its explanation for denying a release. “In fact, you have made no observable and measurable changes which would reduce the risk (of reoffending) that you present.”

Nicholls can appeal the board’s decision. He will reach his statutory release date, the two-thirds mark of his sentence, in roughly seven months.

pcherry@postmedia.com

Vygantas Kuncas almost became his own worst enemy on Thursday.

The 32-year-old St-Lambert resident was scheduled to appear before Quebec Court Judge Bertrand St-Arnaud at the Valleyfield courthouse for what was expected to be the equivalent of a rubber stamp on the sentence the judge agreed to this month. Kuncas had admitted he grew medicinal marijuana without having followed the rules set out in a licence he received from Health Canada.

After being linked to a greenhouse where police found 136 cannabis plants, Kuncas was originally charged in 2015 with producing marijuana as a Criminal Code offence, a charge that carries a maximum 14-year sentence. On Sept. 4, he was able to plead guilty to simple possession of marijuana. St-Arnaud agreed to sentence Kuncas to an unconditional discharge as long as he could produce a record that he had donated $750 to a charity.

On Thursday, Kuncas was expected to appear, present a record of the donation and walk away with a sentence that would leave him with no criminal record. But just before the hearing was scheduled to begin, an article on La Presse’s website, based on an interview Kuncas recently gave, called into question whether Kuncas actually understood what he pleaded guilty to this month and whether he admitted he had done something wrong.

“It disgusts me to plead guilty to a crime I did not commit,” Kuncas told La Presse, which also quoted him as stating he believed an unconditional discharge would leave him with a criminal record.

Kuncas was authorized to grow cannabis at his former residence in Vaudreuil-Dorion to help him deal with gastric pain. While growing marijuana plants indoors, as required by Health Canada, Kuncas began to experience problems with mould. Kuncas joined with three others who were authorized to grow marijuana and decided to grow 136 plants in a greenhouse that wasn’t fully enclosed. The four combined were authorized to grow more than 1,000 plants indoors.

People residing near the greenhouse became concerned and called the police. Following an investigation by the Sûreté du Québec, Kuncas was charged with producing marijuana on Oct. 20. 2015. His lawyer, Isabella Teolis, managed to have the charge significantly reduced to the summary offence to which Kuncas pleaded guilty on Sept. 4.

On Thursday, prosecutor Lili Prevost Gravel held up a printout of the La Presse article and argued that St-Arnaud should withdraw the guilty plea.

“I don’t think the common suggestion (on the sentence) is a common suggestion anymore,” the prosecutor said in reference to what happened in court on Sept. 4. She noted how Kuncas told La Presse he was disgusted over having to plead guilty.

Gravel also questioned Kuncas’s sincerity for having said in court on Thursday: “My lawyer told me this is a loophole so I can sweep this away. It’s the easiest way.”

St-Arnaud appeared to find a polite way to advise Kuncas to keep quiet and let his lawyer speak for him.

“You have a first class lawyer. She is one of the best in Quebec,” St-Arnaud said of the attorney who represented Marc Emery, Canada’s so-called “Prince of Pot” in a case heard in Montreal this year.

Teolis argued the case against Kuncas should be based on evidence heard in court and not quotes from an online article. After having been shown proof the donation was made, St-Arnaud agreed to sentence Kuncas to an unconditional discharge.

Gravel shook her head in apparent disbelief as the judge delivered his decision, but she later told reporters she could live with it.

pcherry@postmedia.com 

Related

• 'Prince of Pot' Marc Emery says Quebec cannabis plan will fail, keep black market in business

Santiago Jimenez experiences anxiety every time he opens the front door to his home.

The simple action reminds the 74-year-old engineer and salesman of how a stranger stormed into his home in Vaudreuil-Dorion before noon on Nov. 27, 2015, and pummelled his face so badly he was unable to see anything as he was later rushed to a hospital.

“I was technically dead and I was lucky to be alive,” Jimenez said at the Valleyfield courthouse on Thursday while he testified at a sentence hearing for Rakeim Terrence Floyd, the 27-year-old St-Lazare resident who pleaded guilty, on Jan. 11, to four charges related to the home invasion.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Floyd was quoted as having told Jimenez when he forced his way into the home and then, seconds later, proceeded to repeatedly punch the victim in the face. The victim suffered several skull fractures and his eyes were so badly damaged he had to undergo two different types of surgery to correct his vision.

Jimenez was alone at the time and still can’t recall how he managed to call 911 and his wife after Floyd left his home.

“I have lived and I continue to live terrible moments,” Jimenez said while explaining to Quebec Court Judge Bertrand St-Arnaud how, three years later, emotions like anger, anxiety and panic continue to suddenly surface.

“Every time I wake up I feel different emotions. I experience panic attacks,” he said. “Every time I open the front door I see (Floyd) standing there. No matter what I do I cannot put away my memories of this person.”

Prosecutor Pierre-Olivier Gagnon asked that Floyd be sentenced to a 14-year prison term, the maximum sentence for the aggravated assault charge to which he pleaded guilty. Gagnon noted that Floyd has already been convicted in another home invasion, carried out with an accomplice on Dec. 15, 2011. In that case, Floyd received an overall sentence of 30 months. Back then, his youth and lack of a significant criminal record were considered mitigating factors that contributed to the sentence. Floyd cannot expect the same leniency this time around. His lawyer, Guy Lalonde, concedes his client merits a sentence somewhere between six and eight years.

To support his argument for the maximum sentence, Gagnon submitted a pre-sentencing report in which Floyd, who listened to Jimenez’s testimony without registering any reaction, was assessed as being at high risk of reoffending. St-Arnaud was also shown images, recorded by surveillance cameras inside stores, that proved Floyd gassed up his car and purchased a pair of gloves just minutes before he assaulted Jimenez.

Jimenez and his wife were unable to return to their home for more than a month while police continued to search for the person responsible. He and his wife had security cameras installed in their home and a gate in an entranceway in the weeks that followed the attack. They also hired security guards to protect them for weeks while they continued to wonder why someone would storm into their home and carry out a crime with such brutal force. Jimenez’s wife estimated they spent more than $70,000 in an effort to feel safe again.

Floyd was ultimately linked to the home invasion through his car, a gift from his father, Tyrone Floyd, and was arrested in January 2016. By the time police got their hands on the car it had been throughly cleaned except for the seatbelt buckles, where a forensics expert found traces of Jimenez’s DNA.

Tyrone Floyd, 47,  testified in support of his son on Thursday and urged St-Arnaud to consider that his oldest son (out of eight children) began abusing dugs and alcohol in high school where he was mocked for being overweight and managed to keep the abuse a secret for years.

“(The prosecution) is painting a picture of someone who is horrible. That is not Rakeim,” the father said while adding that his son only opened up to him about his substance abuse following his arrest for the second home invasion.

“It’s very difficult time for us also. That’s not how I raised him,” the father said.

While being cross-examined by Gagnon later in his testimony, Tyrone Floyd conceded that another of his sons is currently out on parole as part of a four-year sentence he received for carrying out a home invasion.

St-Arnaud said he will deliberate on the arguments and testimony he heard before he delivers his decision.

pcherry@postmedia.com