Amanda Vaughan
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, September 12, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - The story of a life-long Yellowknifer's descent into drug addiction unfolded in court Thursday, as a judge handed a woman a 30-month sentence in prison for trafficking cocaine.

Sandra Gellenbeck is seen here in the cab she used to drive in December, 2000. - NNSL file photo

One of the last of the Project Gunship suspects to be prosecuted, Sandra Gellenbeck sat solemnly throughout the sentencing hearing in Territorial Supreme Court following her guilty plea to the single charge.

Her defence counsel, Alex Pringle, told the court about her downward spiral of addiction, culminating with her arrest while carrying 10 ounces of cocaine on Sept. 27, 2005.

"In over 30 years of practice, I have never met anyone similar to Ms. Gellenbeck who was involved in drug trafficking," Pringle said in his opening submission.

"Ms. Gellenbeck will have to pay the price for her fall from grace."

According to Pringle, Gellenbeck was the only child of two Austrian immigrants, Karl and Gertrude Lust, owners of one of Yellowknife's oldest businesses Johnson's Building Supplies, which Gellenbeck took over following her father's death in 2002.

She was raised in Yellowknife, and in her own words, was "taught to work hard, and not waste too much time on fun and frivolous things."

Pringle said she finished school in Yellowknife, attended college in Calgary, and had "tried cocaine once as a young person, and didn't like it."

Pringle then detailed his client's series of troubled relationships with five different men, one of which was a marriage, and the last of which, beginning not too long after her father's death, was a key part of her introduction to cocaine.

After taking over Johnson's Building Supplies, Pringle said Gellenbeck found cocaine "helped her have the energy to stay up late, and get up early," to put a lot of time into her work.

"She was soon very seriously addicted, using up to five grams a day," Pringle said, also mentioning that she was buying for her then common-law partner, who was not named in court, and a few of his friends.

"She was the one with the money," said Pringle, "and this was a case of others using her for her generosity and financial ability to buy the drug."

Pringle characterized Gellenbeck as a very honest, hard-working person with a lot of respect for the judicial process, but acknowledged the serious nature of her crime.

He also submitted a report on Gellenbeck from a forensic psychologist, and letters of support of the accused from eight Yellowknifers, three of whom were present in the courtroom along with one of Gellenbeck's three daughters.

In an admitted statement of facts read by Crown prosecutor Shelley Tkatch, she had purchased the cocaine for $20,000 from Ken Wong, the main target of Gunship, and a major player in a network of cocaine distribution in Yellowknife.

Tkatch agreed with Pringle's statements, saying it was consistent with the police reports that Gellenbeck was not selling the drug for a profit of any kind, but simply buying it to distribute among her personal acquaintances.

In the end, Justice Edward Richard said that even though there was no profit, the distribution was still trafficking.

Despite that, Richard accepted Pringle's recommended sentence of 30-months.

"It seems from your own self-reflections that you are capable of recovery, to turn your life around to what it was before," said Richard.

After the proceedings were over, Gellenbeck had a hug and a few words with her daughter, who broke down outside the courtroom, sobbing on the shoulder of a friend of her mother's.