A woman who helped her boyfriend deal drugs in Montreal while he hid in Ontario to avoid being arrested for a murder in Côte-des-Neiges was sentenced Thursday to a ninety-day prison term.
Akiva Shawanna James, 28, admitted earlier this year that she helped Oswald Wyke, 30, as he continued to sell drugs from Toronto while both knew he was under investigation for the murder of Afredo Olvin Paz, a man who had been shot from behind while Wyke was hosting a backyard party on Victoria St. in the Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough on June 28, 2014.
On April 5, she pleaded guilty to one count of being an accessory after the fact to murder, a Criminal Code offence that carries a maximum life sentence. While agreeing with a joint recommendation that James be allowed to carry out her sentence by serving two weekdays a week behind bars, Superior Court Justice Pierre Labrie called the submission “lenient.”
“However, the Court cannot dismiss a joint submission unless it would be viewed by reasonable and informed persons as a breakdown in the proper functioning of the justice system,” Labrie said. He noted that both prosecutor Louis Bouthillier and defence lawyer Lloyd Fishler “took the view that her actions are at the low end range of an accessory after the fact to murder.”
James is a single mother with three young children and had no previous criminal record before helping Wyke while he was on the lam. Bouthillier had conceded that while an 18-month prison term would have been a fit sentence, it also would have made James’s children collateral victims of the homicide.
“Because of Ms. James’s personal situation and given the fact that the sentence must be individualized, the court does not consider that the objective of general deterrence is an impediment to the joint submission in this case,” Labrie said.
The prison term will be followed by two years of probation during which James will have to carry out 240 hours of community service.
Besides helping Wyke as he continued to sell drugs, James placed $250 in his bank account and visited him in Toronto twice while he was hiding. She also lied to the police twice by claiming she didn’t know where he was. The police secretly recorded conversations where she called Wyke each time after the Montreal police had paid her a visit. Wyke was arrested in Toronto on July 16, 2014, shortly after she called him following the second visit.
On Oct. 19, 2017, a jury found Wyke guilty of second-degree murder. The motive behind the murder was not clear, but Paz was not invited to Wyke’s party, had a history of erratic behaviour and was possibly armed with a knife. The Crown could not produce a witness who saw the actual shooting but it was clear the victim had been shot from behind. One bullet entered the victim’s lower back and the other entered the back of his skull. The victim’s body was found lying in front of a restaurant on Victoria St. and had been spotted by several passersby before someone called the police.
In his decision to sentence Wyke to serve at least 12 years behind bars before he becomes eligible for parole on his life sentence, Justice Claude Champagne wrote that the killer carried out the homicide “in a cowardly manner.” The judge also noted that Wyke showed no concern for the victim while he sent text messages and continued to sell drugs.