PRATT GETS 10 MORE YEARS
Pleaded guilty in armed home invasion
Six years ago Justin Pratt was locked up for shooting to death a stranger at a campfire in Regina, and for wounding another man in a street robbery minutes later.
Three years ago, he got a break on his sentence because he was flourishing in youth custody.
On Friday, the 22-year-old Regina man was sentenced to 10 years in prison — on top of the time remaining on his murder sentence, which would have expired in May 2017 — after pleading guilty to armed robbery. He and his new bride burst into a Regina home last year and stole a man’s medication at gunpoint.
“I’m sorry for what I’ve done, and I want to change things,” said Pratt, a white rosary hanging around his neck beside a “God’s gift” tattoo.
Crown prosecutor Adam Breker suggested change can’t come soon enough for Pratt, who has a teardrop inked on his cheek, the mark of a killer.
“The carnage that he caused as a youth and continued to cause when he committed this offence obviously shows that to now he has not been able to control himself,” he said.
Defence lawyer Carson Demmans said Pratt was using an array of drugs at the time of the robbery. “He wasn’t thinking a hundred per cent straight.”
In imposing the sentence recommended by the Crown and defence, Justice Jeff Kalmakoff told Pratt “this kind of conduct clearly can’t be tolerated.”
On a snowy March 24, 2015, a motorist slowed for a black Honda Civic with its hazard lights on near Athol Street and 4th Avenue. She next saw two masked people, dressed in black, run and jump into the car, so she called police.
The victim — “a rather frail man,” said Breker — was watching TV around 12:30 p.m. when the armed bandits burst in and demanded his prescribed hydromorphone pills. One of the robbers said, “Give (the pills) up; it’s not worth getting shot over.”
He begged to spare his dog when the gun was pointed at the animal. Fearing he’d be shot once the thieves stole his 10 pills, a watch and the cash for his property taxes, the homeowner grabbed the shotgun barrel. They briefly tussled, but no one was hurt.
On a hunch, a Regina officer sent units to Pratt’s residence. Officers turned the corner to see the getaway car approaching. It hit a parked car as a chase ensued, but it was called off for public safety. Police found the car in the 400 block of Froom Crescent. A standoff involving SWAT and crisis negotiators followed. Shortly before 7 p.m. the pair exited. Hidden in the house, police found a Cooey, 12-gauge shotgun Pratt had toted, and the handgun — actually a pellet pistol — carried by his wife. Pratt said the guns were never loaded.
In explaining why the Crown sought such a steep sentence, Breker outlined Pratt’s second-degree murder conviction from November 2010. “A terrible crime,” Pratt, then 16, killed Jodie Lynn Bryant, shooting the 21-year-old Kamsack woman in the head when he randomly fired at a group around a campfire on May 22, 2010. Within less than a halfhour, he used the same gun to shoot a robbery victim in the abdomen.
Pratt received the maximum seven-year youth sentence. With six months credit for time already served, he received a further 3½ years of secure custody and three years of community supervision. He was also prohibited from having any firearms, as he was again on Friday.
Breker said at the murder sentencing, Pratt’s lawyer read his client’s letter of apology, saying, “I want a better life than this.”
In July 2013, a judge converted Pratt’s closed-custody sentence to open (like a teen halfway house), nearly a year early. Reading from the decision, Breker quoted Judge Barbara Tomkins who said Pratt’s progress “has indeed been exceptional.”
“It’s kind of remarkable given the fact ... Mr. Pratt was involved in forming a gang after he’d been sentenced,” said Breker. It was called the 2-3-5 gang, the Criminal Code section for murder. The community supervision portion of his sentence began in May 2014, as scheduled. Three months later, he twice breached the conditions of his release and got six months in custody.
“He is out of the gang life,” said Demmans, adding this latest crime was not gang motivated. Pratt’s wife has cancer and once had a prescription for hydromorphone. Somehow, in his drug-addled mind, Pratt thought the victim, who knew his wife, had taken some of her drugs.
Pratt’s wife Kristen Ashley Foster, 33, told the court he lacked family support growing up. “Justin has done some violent things in his past, but there’s a whole other side of him.”
She said they’d been wed only a short time before the robbery, and haven’t had a chance to experience life as a married couple.
Although she too is facing a prison term when she’s sentenced next month, Foster said they’ve discussed plans for the future and “starting over.”