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Man who lied to police fined $2,300

Galit Rodan
Northern News Services
Published Friday, April 27, 2012

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A man who falsely told police he had been forced at knifepoint to withdraw money from his father's bank account has been sentenced to eight months probation and ordered to pay $2,300 in fines.

In December, the 22-year-old offender gave a sworn statement to Yellowknife RCMP claiming that a man he knew onlyby his first nameforced himand his girlfriend into a black Ford Escort at knifepoint then forced the offenderto withdraw about $320 from an ATM to cover a drug debt.

The money was withdrawn in four increments of $80 - the cost ofone-quarter ounce of marijuana, said Crown prosecutor Danielle Vaillancourt.

At least four RCMP officers embarked on an investigation, Vaillancourt said, taking resources away from "more important matters in the community."

After discovering inconsistencies inthe offenderand his girlfriend's versions of the incident, police arrestedthe manfor public mischief.

He spent eight hours in a cell before confessing he had made upthe story to cover his own theft from his father's bank account. He had withdrawn the money in order to buy drugs, the court heard.

"This thing was nipped in the bud the same day," defence attorney Hugh Latimer told Judge Christine Gagnon Tuesday afternoon. "It wasn't the case of a protracted investigation tying up the officers for months."

Other mitigating factors, said Latimer, were the offender'searly guilty plea; the fact that his accusation didn't get anyone in trouble; and a positive pre-sentence report indicatinghe was remorseful. He has also made amends with his family and is in fact working with his father, said Latimer.

Clad in blue jeans and a grey hoodie, theconvictrose to address the court.

"If I could go back I wouldn't have done any of this. I didn't know it would come to this. I regret everything I did," he said. He apologized to Gagnon for having wasted the court's time.

Vaillancourt said the Crown was seeking three to four months in jail as punishmentbut wouldn't be opposed to a community-based sentence with the offenderunder house arrest for the same length of time.

Latimer told the court his clienthad just secured a job with a trucking company and was set to begin in June. He asked Gagnon for leniency so that his client did not have to give up his upcoming work opportunity.The manhad been convicted of public mischief once before, said Latimer, and had been sentenced to a period of probation. The fact that he did not breach that probation indicated that the sentence worked, said Latimer before asking Gagnon to consider puttinghis clienton probation again.

In delivering her sentence, Gagnon told the court the man'sactions were serious because they resulted in misuse of the police force, perhaps more importantly, because of the risk of an innocent person being investigated and prosecuted.

"An important factor was that the investigation was stopped before anyone was actually prejudiced by your lie," said Gagnon.

Any sentence would have to teach the offendera lesson but also deter others from similar behaviour, she told the court.

"I find that there has to be a serious consequence but a jail sentence may be disproportionate under the circumstances," Gagnon said, before imposing the $2,000 fine and probation order.

Theoffenderhas eight months to pay the fine and must also pay a victim surcharge of $300.

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