A Hay River man caught dealing cocaine to police officers posing undercover as baseball players at the annual Coors slo-pitch tournament last summer has been sentenced to a year in jail minus time served.
And the sentencing in Hay River Territorial Court on Nov. 27 and 28 also heard the first official indication that undercover RCMP officers were actually playing in the Coors Mixed Slo-Pitch Tournament.
In an agreed statement of facts, Crown attorney Jeff Major-Hansford told the court that the Aug. 4 to Aug. 7 operation by the RCMP's G Division Federal Investigation Division and the Hay River RCMP involved undercover officers and was timed to coincide with the annual slo-pitch tournament.
"On Aug. 4, 2017, two undercover officers were playing baseball," he said, in describing the circumstances that led to the trafficking in cocaine charge against 35-year-old Matthew Poitras.
The officers were approached by Poitras while sitting at a table in the beer garden near the ball diamonds, and he offered to sell them cocaine.
Just after the tournament, there was speculation that some RCMP officers had come to town under cover as players in the tournament.
However, the RCMP refused to confirm that.
At the immediate conclusion of Operation Grand Slam on Aug. 7, nine people, including two from High Level, Alta., were charged with various drug-related offences, and others were being sought.
On Aug. 4, Poitras sold the undercover officers 1.6 grams of powdered cocaine for $200, after taking a short time to retrieve the drug.
The next day, the same officers met Poitras in the beer garden and asked if he had any more cocaine, but he did not any on him at the time. The officers drove him to a residence and then to a parking lot where they met a pickup truck driven by an unknown male. Poitras retrieved the cocaine from the pickup truck and a sold 0.8 grams to the officers for $100.
The two sales were wrapped into one count of trafficking in cocaine.
Poitras, who pled guilty to the offence, was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment by Judge Bernadette Schmaltz, minus 177 days he spent in custody prior to the sentencing.
The imprisonment is to be followed by one year's probation.
The Crown had recommended 15 months imprisonment.
"It's not a victimless crime," said Major-Hansford. "There is a deleterious effect on the community when people engage in the trafficking of narcotics."
Defence counsel Michael Hansen had recommended a sentence of nine to 12 months, less time served in custody, considering the small amount of drug sold and its small value.
Hansen noted Poitras had first tried cocaine at age 18, and afterwards it became an "entrenched addiction" for him.
Schmaltz said the community will not tolerate trafficking.
"It's a parasitic lifestyle where you're living off the addictions of others," she told Poitras in passing sentence.
Poitras had written a letter to the judge in which he apologized to the community for his actions and for tarnishing the high standing of Hay River in the NWT.
"I appreciate that," Schmaltz told Poitras. "But I think you also have to realize the harm you do to individual members of the community when you sell them cocaine."
Court was told that Poitras sometimes sold the drug to finance his own habit.
Schmaltz said she took that into consideration, but it was not a mitigating factor.
However, the judge noted Poitras took responsibility for his actions and she accepted that he is remorseful.
She said she also gave Poitras credit for an early guilty plea in imposing what she considered to be the most lenient sentence possible in the circumstances.
As part of the sentence, Poitras is also prohibited from possessing firearms for 10 years following his release and a sample of his DNA will be taken for a national registry.
- with files from John McFadden