Drunk driver who killed woman to be sentenced
A Supreme Court judge said she has a problem with a joint submission from the Crown prosecutor and a defence lawyer calling for a 30-month sentence for a man convicted of impaired driving causing death.
Louise Charbonneau made the comment at the sentencing hearing for Joshua Moore, which got underway yesterday. Moore, 29, was charged after a single vehicle crash on May long weekend that killed Karen Lafferty, 30, from Behchoko.
Moore lost control of the vehicle he was driving on the Ingraham Trail near Prosperous Lake and ended up in a pond.
There were five people in the car at the time. Another woman suffered multiple serious injuries and had to be medevaced to hospital in Edmonton. Moore has also pleaded guilty to impaired driving causing bodily harm.
Court heard that Moore picked up the passengers in Yellowknife in the morning hours on May 21.
He then drove around Yellowknife at a high rate of speed – going as fast as 180 km/h according to one passenger – before heading out on the Ingraham Trail.
Court heard the group stopped at the Yellowknife River to drink before continuing further out the Ingraham Trail. At one point, Moore had to take evasive action to avoid an oncoming vehicle before losing control and ending up in the pond.
Charbonneau pointed out the passengers were scared for their safety and had told Moore to slow down. She pointed out Moore did slow down, but then stopped the vehicle in order to consume alcohol. Charbonneau is not obligated to accept the joint submission on sentencing.
Both defence lawyer Ryan Clements and Crown prosecutor Billi Wun suggested the two-and-a-half-year sentence would be fitting because of Moore's low alcohol readings. He blew .09 – over the legal threshold of .08.
Moore has been in custody since the crash. Charbonneau is to hand down her sentence Jan. 12.
- John McFadden
B.C. man gets three years after cocaine found in luggage
A B.C. man who was found with more than 11 ounces of crack cocaine in his checked luggage on a flight from Calgary to Yellowknife has been sentenced to three years in custody.
Robert Zukowsky, 38, pleaded guilty in front of judge Garth Malakoe is territorial court last Friday. He confessed to the crime even though Crown attorney Duane Praught and defence lawyer Kate Oja agreed the legality of the RCMP search of Zukowsky's bag could have been challenged in court.
According to an agreed statement of facts, Zukowsky was on the flight on July 2 when flight attendants noticed he was acting erratically, changing seats and using the lavatory frequently.
He told them he was having a panic attack.
They felt he might be smoking cigarettes in the washroom and notified RCMP who were waiting for him when the plane landed in Yellowknife.
Mounties searched his checked luggage and found 312 grams or just over 11 ounces of crack cocaine.
Court heard Zukowsky had been in treatment for cocaine addiction at the time and only brought the cocaine to Yellowknife to repay a drug debt. There was no evidence showing Zukowsky had intended to sell the drugs on the streets himself.
Both Oja and Praught sought a three year sentence for the conviction of the charge of possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking.
Court also heard Zukowsky has attended Bible study twice a week while in custody at the North Slave Correctional Centre and is now a practicing Jehovah's Witness.
A tearful Zukowsky addressed Malakoe before he was sentenced.
"I know what I did was wrong. I'm scared as hell. I've been shot in the head, almost beaten to death. I can't live like this. I will accept your decision," Zukowsky said.
Malakoe gave Zukowsky 250 days credit for his 166 days in pre-trial custody with the standard 1.5 days for each day spent in custody. That means he will have roughly two years and four months left to serve.
Zukowsky is also prohibited from possessing a firearm for ten years after his release. He must also provide a sample of his DNA for the national registry.
-John McFadden
Man gets three years for assault conspiracy
A man was sentenced to three years in custody yesterday after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit aggravated assault.
Ryley Moore, 22, will have to serve just under one year and two weeks after being given 1.5 days credit for each of the 478 days spent in pre-trial custody.
He was handed his punishment yesterday in NWT Supreme Court by Justice Shannon Smallwood. That followed a sentencing hearing Monday in which three phone calls were played in court between Moore and convicted drug kingpin Todd Dube.
The calls were wiretapped by RCMP in 2016. In the calls, Dube offers Moore $5,000 to put a man, whom Dube described as a snitch, in hospital in a coma.
Once police intercepted that call – the intended target was located and arrested on an outstanding warrant by police in Edmonton – they told the man his life was in danger, but he declined their offer of protection.
Moore grew up in Hay River and spent time in Yellowknife. He was arrested after a warrant was executed in High Level, Alta., in July of 2016. He has been in custody ever since.
He had only been out of jail for about two weeks on another charge when the calls were intercepted. He was also on probation at the time of the latest offence.
-John McFadden
Stashhouse woman to be sentenced Jan 3
A Ndilo woman who arranged for her mother and grandmother to make a drug pickup at the NWT- Alberta border will spend Christmas in jail.
Katrina Stiopu, 27, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to traffic in cocaine and other drugs. Court heard that she arranged drug picksups and stashhouses for a sophisticated drug network headed by Todd Dube.
Court heard a number of phone conversations between Dube and Stiopu made in spring of 2016. The calls were wiretapped by RCMP as part of the anti-drug operation dubbed Project Green Manalishi.
Stiopu arranged a drug pick up by her mother and grandmother who were to drive the drugs to Yellowknife. However, they were stopped by RCMP on their way home and arrested and charged. Those two women remain before the courts.
Stiopu, a single mother with a six year old daughter can be heard on other calls arranging with Dube for him to pick up drugs at one of three locations she provided him to store crack and fentanyl – two in homes in Ndilo and one near Dettah.
Crown prosecutor Duane Praught asked for five years in custody while Stiopu's lawyer Jan Bran argued that the time she has served in custody – since April of 2016, at the Fort Smith correctional centre for women – should be enough.
Stiopu teared up as she read a four page letter to the judge.
"If I had know this was going to separate me from my daughter, I never would have done it," an said emotional Stiopu said.
Supreme Court Justice Shannon Smallwood is to hand down her sentence Jan. 3.
-John McFadden