City man headed to prison for weapons offences

A 31-year-old Lethbridge man whose drug addictions led to years of crime received the harshest sentence of his criminal career Thursday.

Chance Bodan Nordean, who, despite a criminal record dating back to 2010, has never served a sentence in a federal penitentiary. That all changed, however, following a hearing in Lethbridge provincial court.

Nordean pleaded guilty to one count of break and enter and theft of a firearm and six counts of possession of a stolen firearm and was sentenced to three and a half years in prison.

Court was told Nordean and another individual were driven to the northside Nov. 2 of last year where they broke into a residence and stole numerous firearms. They then drove to another location and unloaded many of the firearms into a storage locker.

After he was arrested and charged, Nordean confessed his role in the offences and police recovered several rifles from the storage locker and a shotgun from a southside residence. Two firearms were never recovered.

Crown prosecutor Vaughan Hartigan stressed the seriousness of the offences, and said the primary concern is that stolen weapons are often sold and may used to commit other serious offences.

Nordean admitted his crimes stemmed from his addiction to drugs, although he added he never had problems when he was growing up and was involved in athletics.

“I don’t know what happened,” he told the judge.

In addition to his sentence, for which he was given credit for the equivalent of nearly a year he already spent in custody, Nordean must submit a sample of his DNA for the National DNA Databank. He is also prohibited from possessing certain firearms and weapons for life.

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