Amanda Vaughan
Northern News Services
Published Friday, November 30, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - Former Yellowknife drug kingpin Ken Wong's jail sentence was reduced by a year after winning an appeal Nov. 22.

Wong, former owner of the Right Spot bar, was sentenced to six years in prison in July after he was convicted of conspiring to traffic cocaine, money laundering and tax evasion. He was busted in October 2005 during the RCMP's undercover operation Project Gunship.

Wong's defence lawyer, Robert Davidson, argued that the trial judge, Justice Ted Richard, had "failed to follow proper procedure" before overturning a joint submission from the Crown and defence calling for a five-year sentence. Richard handed Wong six years.

According to Justice P. Costigan, a joint submission must be considered by a sentencing judge unless he or she believes it to be drastically unfit. The judge must then notify both the Crown and the defence of the decision, allowing them further arguments before the sentence is decided.

"The effectiveness of plea bargaining is undermined if there is no sense of certainty," said Costigan.