The first of five people at the “employee level” to be sentenced for a drug ring busted in 2012 will avoid jail.
Tyrell MacDougall, was charged in July 2013 as part of a major RCMP bust. Police said at the time the cocaine network had ties to the United Nations gang, though that allegation has not since been argued in court.
In a written decision released this week, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Miriam Gropper sided with the defence, which argued for a conditional sentence rather than the 15 months jail sought by the Crown.
Eight men were charged with offences ranging from trafficking to commissioning a crime on behalf of a criminal organization. MacDougall, 31, pleaded guilty to a single count of trafficking.
Gropper said MacDougall was a courier, who answered the phone delivered cocaine to buyers. He sold cocaine to undercover RCMP on three occasions in 2012, the final time an amount valued at $1,000.
“In this case the aggravating factors are that the offender’s involvement was over a six-month period, he was a participant in the dial-a-dope scheme for profit (and) he is not an addict,” Gropper said.
But Gropper said rehabilitation must weigh high on the sentencing criteria. He has no criminal record and is now training to be a conductor with CN Rail in Alberta.
For the first six months of the sentence, MacDougall will be under house arrest except for purposes of work. That’s followed for the remainder of the term by a curfew between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.
He is also banned from possessing weapons for 10 years.
In March, a B.C. Supreme Court justice sentenced Jean Claud Auger, the wholesaler to the cocaine ring, to four years in prison. He was caught with drug paraphernalia and $140,000 in cash stuffed in the wall of his home.
Two other men the Crown alleges owned and managed the operation, respectively— Richard Arthur Crawford and Steven Lloyd Currie — are set to stand trial this year.
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