A Tobiano man who was busted with more than $20,000 in stolen equipment earlier this month has been sentenced to spend nearly a year behind bars.
James Ashley Jerome Cousineau will also spend one year on probation with a number of conditions, including one barring him from going to Tobiano.
Cousineau pleaded guilty on Monday n Kamloops provincial court to four counts of possession of stolen property.
Court heard the 36-year-old showed up on police radar following a June 30 traffic stop near Cherry Creek. At the time, a Kamloops Mountie noted a Kawasaki ATV in the back of his pickup truck.
The ATV had been reported stolen in Alberta, but had not yet been entered into the computer system used by police. When it showed up on the system on July 9, investigators visited Cousineau’s rented Tobiano home.
At Cousineau’s Colebrook Road home, Mounties found two ATVs outside and another in an underground parking stall. A stolen electric welder was also found on a trailer.
Cousineau has a lengthy criminal history, including a dozen convictions for property-related offences, but had not been in trouble with the law for more than six years.
Cousineau is originally from Ontario and spent time in Alberta before settling in B.C. after being granted parole in Kamloops.
Kamloops provincial court Judge Len Marchand called Cousineau’s actions “a very substantial crime spree.”
“It’s not like theft under where you go into the grocery store because you’re hungry or sell some small items at a pawn shop to feed a drug habit,” he said.
“This is major crime.”
The Crown had been seeking a one-year jail term, but Marchand sentenced Cousineau to 300 days behind bars.
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