Cocaine dealer’s sentencing gets tricky

A man who owned and planned to sell cocaine that Prince Albert police found next to $7,000 in cash will wait weeks to find out if he’ll serve time in prison or in the community.

Sentencing submissions regarding the Sept. 2012 seizure of more than 60 grams of cocaine and the cash from Pascal Poirier’s home were scheduled to wrap up this week at Prince Albert’s Court of Queen’s Bench.

The sentence is related to the 2014 guilty convictions for Poirier for possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking, proceeds of crime, and possession of marijuana.

Crown prosecutor Sylvia Verkerk noted the bust took place only a few months before a federal bill took away the possibility of a conditional sentence. The Safe Streets and Communities Act includes a mandatory minimum imprisonment of one year for cocaine trafficking.

However, differing views on the mitigating factors – which are facts to provide grounds for behaviour – for Poirier have put a pin in that for the time being.

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Verkerk critiqued Poirier’s claim that he is now aware of the effect hard drugs have in society, and the moral issues it contributes to, which was found in his pre-sentencing report. A pre-sentencing report is prepared by a probation officer after interviewing the offender.

However, in that same report “the word sorry is never mentioned,” she told the court.

Verkerk said Poirier, a charismatic young man who graduated with high honours, knows how to say the right things to look like a reformed heavy cocaine addict.

She added that no evidence of the addiction was called in his September trial.

Verkerk said the value of the drugs and money found in his home points to a “thriving business” and “cannot easily be dismissed.”

She pointed to seven prior convictions Poirier had faced, and two curfew breaches related to his recent recognizance.

Incarceration is needed, she told the court. Verkerk is advocating for the cocaine sentence to stand in the 18 to 24-month range, the proceeds of crime sentence at six months and the marijuana to stand just at a fine.

She didn’t have a preference on whether those were served at the same time or consecutively.

Disputing views on the pre-sentencing report

Garth Bendig, Poirier’s defence, told the court he hadn’t anticipated all of the issues Verkerk had with the pre-sentence report.

Bendig intended to put forward four separate factors from within that report that “make it an exceptional case.”

He stated Poirier was under duress because Poirier was pressured by his dealer to sell cocaine, that the accused was selling it to deal with a past drug debt, and that he had a rampant drug addiction.

The final factor is that Poirier turned to drugs as he dealt with post-traumatic stress disorder related to a car accident in which he’d been the driver. A friend died in that accident.

Further evidence is needed to prove these as facts for the sentence. This means they will head to a sentencing hearing to determine several facts before Justice A.R. Rothery can deliver Poirier’s sentence.

Rothery spoke after Verkerk’s submissions, saying there are to stumbling blocks to Poirier serving a community sentence rather than incarceration. 

These revolved around the alleged recognizance breaches, and that other appellate court decisions to overturn conditional sentence orders handed out to people under similar circumstances to Poirier.

The case will return to the Court of Queen’s Bench for the sentencing hearing on Feb. 20.

claskowski@panow.com

On Twitter: @chelsealaskowsk