Addict gets 100 days in jail for theft from condos

Mailboxes forced open with crowbar

Breaking into a bank of mailboxes at an Airdrie condo complex has landed a Calgary-area man a 100day jail term.

Provincial court Judge Peter Barley on Wednesday agreed with Crown prosecutor Joshua Chan that more jail time was warranted for Dustin McFadden.

Defence counsel Ramai Alvarez had argued the equivalent of 70 days McFadden already served was adequate punishment.

But Barley ordered the meth and heroin addict to serve another 30 days, after McFadden, 37, pleaded guilty to a rare charge of mail theft.

“The Crown is right that breaking into mailboxes is terrible,” Barley said, noting people who have their mail stolen often don’t know what’s missing.

Chan said security video showed a male using a crowbar to break into several mailboxes at an Airdrie condo complex June 6, 2017.

Police released photos from the surveillance video and received an anonymous voice mail a month later indicating the culprit was McFadden, Chan said.

Through social media, police were able to confirm McFadden was the suspect. He was subsequently arrested in Cochrane on an unrelated matter.

Alvarez said McFadden has had a difficult life, complicated by drug addiction.

She said he was clean from 2009 to 2016, but began using again when he started hanging around with the wrong people.

“That’s when he began using meth and heroin,” Alvarez said.

Alvarez said her client, who is also serving 15 months for break and enter, “is trying to do what he can to deal with his addiction issues.”