NNSL (JAN 08/97) - A Lutselk'e man who took part in a stabbing last spring at the Gold Range Hotel has been sentenced to 22 months in jail.

Supreme Court Justice John Vertes passed sentence on Richard Marlowe, 25, Friday afternoon in Yellowknife, after accepting a guilty plea on a charge of aggravated assault.

Originally police charged Marlowe and Michael Lafferty with attempted murder in the May stabbing of a Gold Range cook in the victim's own hotel room. Crown lawyer Scott Cooper allowed Marlowe to plead guilty to the less serious charge.

An agreed statement of facts detailed Marlowe's involvement in the incident that ended with Lafferty plunging the blade of a five-centimetre paring knife into the cook's stomach.

Marlowe, who was in the city at the time to attend court, was hanging out at the Gold Range Hotel when he came across Michael Lafferty, of Yellowknife, who was punching the cook at the hotel's entrance.

Lafferty had accused the cook of giving his wife cocaine and alcohol.

The pair took the cook to his hotel room, punched him several times, and then Marlowe took a knife from the kitchen and handed it to Lafferty. He stabbed the cook once in the lower stomach.

Police arrived shortly after and the two men fled the scene. Mounties tracked them down and arrested them about two hours later.

The cook was rushed to Stanton Regional Hospital, where doctors found that no organs had been punctured and the wound was relatively minor. He was released from the hospital two days later.

Lafferty pleaded guilty to aggravated assault last November and was sentenced to 12 months in jail, although the Crown is appealing the sentence.

Defence lawyer Tom Boyd argued that Marlowe's involvement in the crime was less than Lafferty's and asked Vertes to sentence his client to less than Lafferty's one-year term.

Cooper asked Vertes to sentence the man to two-years less a day -- which would allow Marlowe to serve the sentence in the NWT rather than being sent to a southern pentiteniary -- and pointed out that he had asked the court to sentence Lafferty to between three and four years in jail.

Vertes, who interrupted defence and Crown submissions several times, suggested that if Marlowe hadn't obtained the knife and handed it to Lafferty, there might not have been a stabbing at all.

"Frankly, Mr. Cooper, I can see arguments why this man should go to a penitentiary. However, you stand there saying, 'No, he shouldn't be sentenced to penitentiary time,'" said Vertes.

However, Vertes also suggested that Marlowe's chances at rehabilitation were probably greater than Lafferty's given his shorter criminal record.

Lafferty's record includes more than 25 previous convictions, while Marlowe has just five.

Marlowe told Vertes he was sorry for what he had done and agreed that he had to get his life back on track.