A Kingston judge has disposed of the last of the charges against a group of six young "budtenders" arrested in a raid on an illegal Princess Street marijuana dispensary in March 2017. Justice Larry O'Brien declined, however, to impose a sentence that would have encumbered the 23-year-old Ottawa woman with a criminal record when the principals profiting from the business went unidentified and were never charged. Instead, he gave the woman a discharge, conditional upon her successful completion of one year of probation, after she pleaded guilty to a single charge of possessing marijuana for the purpose of trafficking. The terms of her probation oblige her to complete assessments and counselling as directed by her probation officer and require that she not socialize with anyone she knows to have a criminal or drug record. [continues 961 words]
A judge of the Ontario Court of Justice was told this week that a former Queen's University student, caught by Kingston Police with a grow operation in his attic and three Zip-lock bags of marijuana bud, was growing the weed as medicine for his dad. Christopher Robinson, 20, pleaded guilty in front of Justice Judith Beaman to a single count of illegal production of a controlled substance and was given a six-month conditional sentence to serve in the community under restrictions. [continues 465 words]
A Kingston man, whose determination to break into a Cliff Crescent house came within millimetres of costing him his life, has been sentenced to three months in jail and placed on probation for 18 months. Matthew C. C. Jeffrey, 25, spent 45 days in pretrial custody before pleading guilty this week in Kingston's Ontario Court of Justice to breaking and entering and violating a probation order he'd received less than three weeks before his latest crimes. Assistant Crown attorney Ross Drummond told the court that Jeffrey and an unknown male turned up at the home of a Cliff Crescent couple around 6:41 p. m. on July 2 and started banging loudly on the front door. [continues 413 words]
A former pipeline worker made a good decision when he asked to have a marijuana possession charge from Kirkland Lake transferred to Kingston's Ontario Court of Justice. Usually, when people indicate their intention to plead guilty to charges and request, as a matter of convenience, to have them moved from one region to another in Canada, the Crown office in the area where the charge was laid recommends sentence. Most of the time, judges accept those recommendations. The Kirkland Lake Crown was recommending that Trevor White pay a fine of $350 - and White wasn't quibbling. [continues 404 words]
Courtroom security was cranked up at Kingston's provincial courthouse yesterday for a brief appearance by six people charged in last week's seizure of $60 million worth of cocaine. The accused - five men and a woman, all from Quebec - have been in custody at the Quinte Detention Centre in Napanee since their arrest Friday. Spectators were barred from the courtroom while the five men, heavily guarded, were brought up from the cells and placed in the prisoner's dock for a bail hearing. [continues 301 words]
A woman on trial over drugs found two years ago inside Collins Bay Penitentiary admitted yesterday that she brought in the dope, but told the jury she felt she had no choice because she thought her husband's and children's lives were in danger. Sherry McBride, 41, testified that three large, bald-headed strangers pushed their way into her Days Road apartment and threatened to have her husband, John Major, killed and to hurt her two daughters unless she smuggled for them. [continues 666 words]
Drug dealers and other criminals who adopt lifestyles that most working stiffs can only dream of get away with it often because their neighbours aren't suspicious enough to tip off police, according to members of Kingston's Proceeds of Crime Unit. "If they see someone who's moved in next door and they bought a big house that's $300,000 and they see that they don't work, [they should be asking] 'How do they live like that?' " RCMP Sgt. John Dempster, head of the unit, told a law enforcement seminar in Kingston last week. [continues 551 words]
Police hope drugs are harder to find in downtown Kingston today. A four-month undercover investigation concentrating on lower Princess Street between St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church and the waterfront concluded yesterday morning with a sweep of five city addresses, the arrest of 18 people and arrest warrants issued for 33 others. The joint OPP-city police investigation - dubbed Project Babysitter - focused on drug dealers. "The reason it was called Project Babysitter," Police Chief Bill Closs said, "was not only the youngness of some of the people involved in the drug world ... [but because] as a police chief I've taken this position that young people in the city of Kingston [are] extremely vulnerable when they come into the downtown core and make friends with people who they don't really know. [continues 503 words]
