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There is no denying Steven Armstrong played a pivotal role in a pandemic-era scheme to sneak $1 million worth of cocaine into Newfoundland and Labrador.
The Newmarket, Ont., man’s co-conspirators were caught red-handed by the Mounties with 3.4 kilograms stashed in the airbag compartment of a Honda Ridgeline pickup truck. Armstrong even pleaded guilty.
But is it worth sending a single father to prison if it means his seven-year-old son will become a ward of the state?
That’s the question now being pondered by Justice Louis Strezos of the Ontario Court of Justice.
“Is there not a concern that Jackson may repeat the sins of his father if I make him an orphan?” Strezos asked during a sentencing hearing on Thursday, in which he called the lawyers back to the courtroom to ask more questions before making a decision.
The Crown and defence are miles apart in their submissions to the court.
Defence lawyer Adam Boni is asking for a conditional sentence order of less than two years — essentially house arrest.
Crown prosecutor Christopher Kalantzsis was asking for a prison sentence of up to seven years, but reduced his request to four to five years on Thursday after learning of the sentences for Armstrong’s co-conspirators in Newfoundland.
Dion Wilson Lee Rodgers and Edmond Dorman Pickett pleaded not guilty, but were convicted by a jury of their peers after a trial in Gander, N.L.
Rodgers was sentenced to 39 months, while Pickett received a 34-month sentence.
The court in Newfoundland heard the investigation began in 2018 after police noticed Armstrong was making frequent, short trips to the island through the Marine Atlantic ferry system.
A court case in central Newfoundland is shining a light on how drugs travelled into the province from Ontario in 2020 through the Marine Atlantic ferry system. (Brittany Wentzell/CBC)
Armstrong was stopped during one of those visits in 2019, but police failed to find any drugs in his vehicle. Investigators continued tracking Armstrong into 2020, when they learned he planned to transport a pickup truck to Newfoundland. The province went into lockdown in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving Armstrong unable to gain entry.
In September 2020, police learned Armstrong had left Ontario in the truck and was driving towards the ferry terminal in Nova Scotia. At the same time, police observed Rodgers and his stepfather drive onto the ferry on the other side of the crossing in Newfoundland.
Rodgers’s stepfather got in the Honda Ridgeline when they got to the other side, and headed back to Newfoundland, where he was stopped by police.
In a surprising twist, a search of the vehicle turned up no drugs. Officers later intercepted a message between Rodgers and Armstrong, which led them to look inside the airbag compartment on the passenger side. There, they found 3.4 kilograms of cocaine in a customized module with a hydraulic release system.
Judge voices concern for child
The court in Ontario heard Steven Armstrong has a lengthy criminal record, with his last convictions resulting in federal time in 2011.
Kalantzsis referred to Armstrong as a “recidivist drug offender,” while Boni argued his record is dated and less relevant.
Armstrong never knew his father, the court heard, and grew up in the child welfare system.
Boni pointed out that Armstrong hasn’t reoffended in the five years he’s been on bail conditions for his most recent charges, and said his son has had a major impact on his life choices.
“In a twist of cruel fate the young boy’s challenges and the nature of the care he requires and the fact that Mr. Armstrong is the only person who can deliver it has actually commenced the process of rehabilitation in the intervening period,” Boni said. “The connection between this boy and his father is not only relevant from the collateral consequence on the boy, but is also relevant to the rehabilitation of this offender in a marked way.”
Kalantzsis argued the sentence shouldn’t be guided solely by Armstrong’s prospects for rehabilitation, but by a need to find a sentence that matches the gravity of the offence and the moral blameworthiness of the offender.
“I don’t make any submission that incarcerating Mr. Armstrong is not going to bad for the child,” Kalantzsis said. “There is no doubt about that.”
“But let me narrow that down a bit more,” Strezos said. “The undisputed record before me is that this child will become an orphan and will go to group homes, right? That’s the record … I’m left in the situation where I have a child who is now eight? Seven? Who will go to a group home and potentially be subject to the very forces and dynamics that led to Mr. Armstrong’s criminality.”
Strezos said there is an avenue available to him, through a sentence like house arrest, that could “break that cycle … and it’s on my mind.”
Strezos will render his decision on Nov. 12.
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