Charlottetown drug dealer sentenced to 5 plus years in prison
A Charlottetown man who ran a industrial drug dealing operation out of an house on Kensington Street has been sentenced to 5 and a half years in jail.
Joel Robert Price, 40, appeared by video on Oct. 12 in provincial court docket in Charlottetown and was sentenced for possession of cocaine, crystal methamphetamine and hydromorphone for the aim of trafficking in addition to possession of prohibited firearms, possession of weapons whereas prohibited and careless and unsafe storage of the firearms.
Price beforehand pleaded responsible to the offences.
Price was given 10 months and 22 days of enhanced credit score on the sentence for time already served in custody on the Provincial Correctional Centre since his Feb. 9 arrest.
Search warrant and arrest
Crown lawyer Chris White instructed the court docket that within the early months of this 12 months, Charlottetown police obtained info that Price was promoting medicine out of his house at 79 Kensington Rd. and possessed firearms.
On Feb. 9 at round 7:50 p.m., Charlottetown police’s road crime unit and speedy tactical deployment unit executed a search warrant on the residence, which included firing tear gasoline into the house. Joel Price and his father, who additionally lived within the house, have been each at residence when the search warrant was executed.
Medication, weapons seized
Contained in the house, police discovered and seized 235 grams of crystal methamphetamine, 141 grams of cocaine, 2,668 methamphetamine tablets and 1,068 hydromorphone tablets, mentioned White. The whole estimated road worth of these medicine is $83,222. Police additionally discovered and seized 61 Alprazolam (Xanax) tablets, three 12-guage shotguns, ammunition, $6,432 in money, a digital cash counting machine, three knives, a Taser, a can of bear spray, digital scales and drug paraphernalia, together with two crackpipes. The shotguns and ammunition have been positioned inside Price’s bed room. As properly, Price had two video surveillance cameras put in within the house’s front room above the fireside.
Contained in the house, police discovered and seized 235 grams of crystal methamphetamine, 141 grams of cocaine, 2,668 methamphetamine tablets and 1,068 hydromorphone tablets, 61 alprazolam (Xanax) tablets, three 12-guage shotguns, ammunition, $6,432 in money, a digital cash counting machine, three knives, a Taser, a can of bear spray, digital scales and drug paraphernalia, together with two crackpipes. Price mentioned the $6,060 that was discovered by police in his bed room closet was comprised from Canada Emergency Response Profit (CERB) funds, Previous Age Pension and the Canada Pension Plan revenue. The cash was being saved to assist pay for his mom’s funeral.
Advice
The sentence was a joint advice from White, federal Crown lawyer Jacob Zelman and Price’s lawyer Joel Wonnacott.
Price has a prolonged, prior felony file, famous White.
Chief Choose Jeff Lantz accepted the joint advice for 5 and a half years in jail minus credit score for time already served. As well as, Price was issued one other weapons ban.
Lantz famous that the impression of drug offences is that it ends in people or prospects whose goal is to get extra medicine, which results in extra felony offences to help their drug behavior.
Forfeiture listening to
Of the $6,432 seized throughout the drug bust, Randall Price, Joel’s father, claimed that $6,060 belonged to him and was unrelated to the drug offences.
At a forfeiture listening to earlier than Lantz on Oct. 5, Price testified that he lived in one of many house’s bedrooms together with his son for the previous seven years and paid $400 a month in hire. He mentioned that he did not know what his son did for a dwelling or that he was concerned in drug dealing.
Price, who’s in his 70s, mentioned the $6,060 that was discovered by police in his bed room closet was comprised from Canada Emergency Response Profit (CERB) funds, Previous Age Pension and the Canada Pension Plan revenue. The cash was being saved to assist pay for his mom’s funeral.
As properly, along with the doorknob lock, Price had a separate bolt lock on the skin of his bed room door that he locked when wasn’t within the house.
Price additionally defined that he saved that enormous amount of money in his bed room closet as a result of he did not belief banks because of a previous incident when he had cash disappear from his account.
Price mentioned that he additionally did not discover any medicine or associated objects, comparable to crackpipes, scales, or surveillance cameras, or guests, within the house as a result of he spent most of his time in his bed room watching tv, apart from going to the kitchen every morning to make espresso. Medication have been additionally discovered within the house’s rest room. When Lantz requested what number of loos have been within the house, Price answered “one.”
On Oct. 12 previous to sentencing Joel Price, Lantz dominated towards Randall Price’s utility and ordered that the $6,060 be forfeited. On condition that Price is retired, Lantz questioned how he would have even certified for CERB within the first place.
Lantz mentioned Price’s proof on the listening to “fell properly in need of credible,” including that he discovered it “unimaginable” that he may declare in court docket that he had no concept what was happening within the house given the massive quantity of medicine, firearms and associated objects that have been seized.
Terrence McEachern is a justice reporter with the SaltWire Community in Prince Edward Island. He will be reached by e mail at [email protected] and will be adopted on Twitter @terry_mcn.
