Six more months for assaulting an inmate

A jailhouse assault led to an additional six months for a man already serving time.

Levi Romeo Mitchell pled guilty Tuesday at the Medicine Hat Courthouse to one count of assault causing bodily harm for an incident that took place at the remand centre on Sept. 28.

Medicine Hat police responded to the centre over the assault, finding the victim lying in a pool of blood by his bed — injured with bruising and a 14-centimetre gash on his head.

Surveillance videos and statements from others in custody led police to determine Mitchell was responsible for the assault.

Mitchell was, at the time, in custody due to a charge against him of discharging a firearm with intent. He was later sentenced to six years for this, although has a little less than three left to serve due to pretrial custody. The additional six months for the assault will be consecutive to this time.

Taxi cab abduction

The man accused of abducting and assaulting a local cab driver made a brief court appearance Tuesday.

Shawn Thomas Baldhead, who remains in custody and made his appearance by CCTV from the Medicine Hat Remand Centre, had his next appearance set for April 4.

Baldhead entered notguilty pleas earlier this month, while a pretrial conference is set for March 30.

Baldhead was charged with robbery, kidnapping, sexual assault with a weapon and three counts of uttering death threats/threats to cause bodily harm following a Nov. 24 incident when a man approached a female cab driver in Medicine Hat for a ride to another part of the city. The cab driver was then physically and sexually assaulted, with the taxi driven to Calgary before the victim was released.

Stolen credit cards

A 45-day sentence was handed down to a 19-year-old for charges related to stolen credit cards.

Christopher Lasante pled guilty Tuesday to multiple charges, including a recent arrest in March where he used a credit card at a gas station that had been reported stolen out of a vehicle. When arrested, police also found in his possession items that had been reported stolen from a different vehicle.

Lasante also pled guilty to possessing break-in instruments, a charge that stems from this past November when police observed him and another man in the early morning riding bikes and arrested Lasante on an outstanding warrant. Police found in his possession bolt cutters, a prybar and screwdrivers. He also pled guilty to failing to appear in court twice.

Defence counsel said Lasante is the “poster child for problems the country faces with meth,” and that these incidents stem from his addictions and he knows he needs treatment, especially now.

Due to time already spent in custody, Lasante has 24 days left to serve of his sentence.

Fraud

Pretrial custody means a man will have 30 days left to serve in a 120-day jail sentence that stems from fraud and passing along stolen credit card information.

Jason Claude Tremblay entered guilty pleas Tuesday at the Medicine Hat Courthouse to three charges stemming from his part in incidents where fraudulent credit card transactions were made online, and where — while in the remand centre — participated in passing along credit card information over the phone.

The total cost of these incidents amounted to more than $300.

Co-accused in the incidents have pled guilty and were sentenced.