Court briefs
Arsonist gets 18 months for $1-million fire
Daniel Campbell
Northern News Services
Published Friday, February 7, 2014
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A 23-year-old man who set fire to his former workplace in Kam Lake, causing over $1 million in damages over the summer, was sentenced on Wednesday.
Andrew Joss will spend the next year in jail, be on probation for 18 months following his time behind bars and is ordered pay back the $1,036,783 in damages he caused to Wilf's Renovations.
The restitution order will not be enforced by probation, therefore there is no time limit for Joss to make the payments.
It's estimated around $297,700 of the damages were not covered by insurance, according to the Crown.
Joss said he'd been drinking heavily the night of July 24 and did not plan to cause any damage. When he found himself in Wilf's warehouse, he decided to light some files on fire. According to a pre-sentence report, Joss left because he was scared, but thought the fire was relatively small.
He was apprehended later by guards at the North Slave Correctional Centre who found him wandering outside the jail yard. Joss later confessed to RCMP he'd lit the warehouse on fire.
Wilf's Renovations, a contracting company specializing in fire and water damage repair, employed Joss for a few weeks before the fire. Managers there say Joss quit unexpectantly, but left on good terms.
Serial thief jailed again
A man with a lengthy criminal record of thefts was sentenced to 45 days in jail for stealing a pair of gloves from Igloo Supplies in Yellowknife.
Norman Koe, 45, pleaded guilty to the charge on Jan. 31. He has 77 prior convictions, mostly theft and property related offences, according to court records.
Koe was sentenced last fall to 60 days in jail for a number of crimes, including stealing from a server at the Black Knight pub and breaching his probation on two separate occasions.
Koe was arrested on Jan. 28 for theft.
Deputy Judge Brian Bruser reduced Koe's 45-day-sentence by nine days, giving him credit for the time he served in jail since his arrest.
Weekend jail privileges revoked
A man sentenced to serve his jail sentence intermittently on weekends had that privilege revoked on Thursday.
Richard Allen Andre, 54, pleaded guilty to being unlawfully at large after he skipped out of his first weekend of jail at North Slave Correctional Centre.
Andre was sentenced to three months on Jan. 17 for assaulting a peace officer and breaching his probation. He was supposed to report to jail on Jan 24, but never showed up. Andre has a criminal record showing numerous breaches of court orders and probation.
He was found intoxicated a week later by RCMP at Scotia Bank and arrested. Judge Bernadette Schmaltz sentenced him to a further 30 days in jail. He'll serve that sentence consecutively with his three month sentence full-time.
