Erika Sherk
Northern News Services
Friday, March 9, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - The second of 11 Project Gunship suspects will be sentenced next week.

Tom Desjarlais, 63, will receive a sentence for one charge of possession of a controlled substance for trafficking.

NWT Supreme Court Chief Justice Ted Richard heard submissions from lawyers on the case Monday.

Desjarlais pleaded guilty more than a year ago to the charge of possession of a controlled substance for trafficking.

Originally charged with possession of property obtained by crime as well, that charge was stayed by Crown counsel during the submissions.

The court heard what happened the day Desjarlais was arrested as Crown counsel Darren Mahoney read from an agreed statement of facts.

On Oct. 13, 2005, while the Project Gunship raids were underway, RCMP officers were searching an apartment when Desjarlais arrived at the door.

Police let him in and, after questioning, detained him.

Desjarlais was co-operative, the court heard.

Asked to empty out his pockets, he was found to have $2,000 in two elastic-wrapped bundles and several baggies containing 21 one-gram cocaine rocks. He was then arrested and taken to the RCMP detachment for questioning.

Desjarlais was holding the cocaine for another person who was selling the drugs, said Mahoney.

"He was asked on this occasion to hold something and he did," was how defence lawyer Glen Boyd summed it up.

Boyd told the court that Desjarlais had made a mistake, "an incredible error," by getting involved in the drug trade.

"He got involved in a world beyond his comprehension," said Boyd, stressing that Desjarlais was a "bit player."

Boyd said Desjarlais, a Yellowknife resident since 1974, was an upstanding citizen with a supportive family. He introduced Desjarlais' wife and three grown children.

Raised in "very severe poverty" in Saskatchewan, Boyd told the story of Desjarlais' rough childhood, of his alcoholism that began at age 12 and finally, of the way he turned his life around in the 1970s.

Desjarlais was driven to his involvement in the cocaine trade because of a fear that he would not be able to provide for his family, said Boyd. Health problems had forced him to step back from construction work.

"At that point, somebody offered him an opportunity to make pocket money," said Boyd, then correcting himself, "or grocery money.

"We're not talking thousands of dollars, it was hundreds. All he had to do was hold something."

However, Richard mentioned twice during proceedings the severity of crimes relating to cocaine trafficking, given its prevalence in Yellowknife and the negative effect it has had on the community. Both Mahoney and Boyd recommended Desjarlais be sentenced to house arrest of between nine and 12 months.

Boyd also suggested Desjarlais be sentenced to 240 hours community service on top of the house arrest, doing volunteer construction work.

Richard reserved his decision for a week.