Pubdate: Wed, 27 May 2015
Source: Record, The (Kitchener, CN ON)
Copyright: 2015 Metroland Media Group Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.therecord.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/225
Author: Brian Caldwell
Page: B3

FAMILY MAN BECAME 'POSTER CHILD FOR HEROIN ADDICTION'

KITCHENER - Shawn Emmerson beat the odds and avoided the long arm of 
the law during an eight-year descent into drug addiction.

But as his habit got worse and his life continued to unravel as a 
result, it finally caught up to him early this year.

At the age of 44, with no prior record of any kind, Emmerson was 
nabbed as one of several suspects in a ring targeting coin machines 
in apartment building laundry rooms in Kitchener and Waterloo.

By then, he had already lost his job and his family while going from 
prescription painkillers to heroin.

"How did he get by for eight years before it came to this?" defence 
lawyer Hal Mattson asked Tuesday. "Well, the filter came off when his 
wife and children left."

The prosecution sought the equivalent of up to nine months in jail 
after Emmerson admitted to involvement in several of the break-ins 
over the course of about a month in February and March. Crown 
attorney David Russell said it was concerning Emmerson downplayed his 
need for counselling in an interview with a probation officer despite 
two failed rehab stints.

"That seems like such a gross rationalization or understatement," 
Russell told Kitchener court. "He's lost everything, effectively."

Justice Colin Westman, however, agreed with Mattson that a little 
more time behind bars isn't going to solve the problem at the root of 
the crimes. He sentenced Emmerson to time already served - the 
equivalent of about 4 1/2 months in jail - and three years on 
probation with a nightly curfew of 11p.m.

"If there's going to be meaningful rehabilitation, it's going to take 
place in the community," Westman said. "It's not taking place in jail."

Mattson said Emmerson looked like a "poster child for heroin 
addiction" by the time he was arrested after first abusing OxyContin, 
a painkiller that proved to be both highly addictive and destructive 
on the street.

"The reason he went to heroin is because the government took 
OxyContin off the market and all the heroin dealers are partying like 
rock stars," Mattson said.

Several other suspects in the theft ring, most of whom have lengthy 
records, are still before the courts.
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