Armed robber sentenced to four-and-a-half years
Feeling let down by the justice system, a woman who was robbed at gunpoint after her friend’s car was forced off the road angrily left a Regina courtroom before the case was even concluded.
“These guys, one gets to walk away for no reason; the other guy, he doesn’t get what he should have gotten,” Stephanie Gartel said outside of provincial court on Monday. She said she was beaten unconscious in a Sept. 18 attack in south Regina.
Robert Acrossthemountain, 19, was sentenced to four-and-ahalf years in prison after pleading guilty to two counts of armed robbery. Given his 282 days already served in custody, his remaining term is three years and four months. Judge Pat Reis imposed the sentence jointly recommended by the Crown and defence.
Charges against a second man, Kendell Ameech, were stayed.
Gartel, 24, has been unable to work and has undergone physiotherapy and therapy ever since the offence. She believes she and her friend, who requested that her name not be published, would have been killed had they not abandoned their vehicle.
“The facts of this case are frightening,” said senior Crown prosecutor Sonya Guiboche, as “innocent motorists” were attacked and robbed in the early morning.
The crime spree involved two separate armed robberies of vehicles driven off the road by four men.
“I really wish I could take it all back,” Acrossthemountain told the victims. “It just wasn’t right. And me, to serve this prison term, I really, really hope that it brings peace for you guys, for the actions that I caused. I’m truly sorry.”
From the time one of the men flashed a handgun outside of Habano’s nightclub at 12:25 a.m. on Sept. 18, Regina Police Service members were looking for the group. Police tried three times to stop their 2005 Hyundai Sonata over the next three hours.
At no time was Acrossthemountain driving the vehicle, said Guiboche.
At 2:58 a.m., Gartel called 911 as her friend’s Jeep was chased from downtown, first south on Albert Street, then west on 25th Avenue. The men threw beer bottles at their car, and they heard a gunshot during the chase.
Ultimately, said Gartel, their Jeep was rammed into a parked truck and three men accosted them.
One put a gun to her friend’s head — which Guiboche said was a pistol-sized pellet gun.
Another man “started pounding my head in,” said Gartel, who did not officially address the court.
The men left, but then “came back to finish us off,” Gartel added. “We ran for our lives.”
In listing Gartel’s injuries, Guiboche said: “We are not alleging bodily harm.”
Frustrated, Gartel said, “He knocked me unconscious for f—’s sake,” then stormed out of the courtroom.
Police had another call at 3:21 a.m., Guiboche said, as the Sonata crashed into a taxi carrying three passengers. The driver was robbed at gunpoint as the passengers tried to shield themselves from the weapon. Police arrested the men after their vehicle crashed into a parked car.
Defence lawyer Noah Evanchuk explained that Acrossthemountain had been drinking “what, in the parlance of hiphop culture, is called purple drank or sizzurp” — a combination of cough syrup and soda — before the crime.
Evanchuk said another man was the mastermind of the night’s events.
He said his client, a member of Peepeekisis First Nation, spent two years in foster care and was introduced to bad influences.
“My client does not have any gang affiliations,” said Evanchuk, though Gartel and her friend believed the men flashed gang signs the night of the attack.
Guiboche said Acrossthemountain is “no stranger to the court,” with 34 prior convictions, mostly property crimes and driving offences, starting in 2012.
“I really hope that his apology was sincere, and I hope that he doesn’t spend the rest of his life in prison by committing other crimes when he gets out,” said Gartel’s mother, Michele Dietzmann.
“Sometimes you can take a bad situation and turn it into something positive, and I hope all of those guys do that.”
Addressing Acrossthemountain, Reis explained the consequences of keeping up a life of crime.
“If you keep getting into trouble … sentences go up like this, dramatically,” said Reis, demonstrating a steep curve with his hand.
“And then what happens is, you wake up in the P.A. penitentiary at about 42, 43 is the average age, you’ll be crying in a cell to yourself. … Your family that you may have had in the interim has abandoned you and you’ll say to yourself, ‘Why did I waste my entire life doing this?’
“The way you apologized gave me some hope, OK? … I wish you well. I’m not trying to lecture you too much. I say these things because I hope you can turn it around.”
Two other men, Dallas Oakes and Wade Lecaine, also charged in the incident are still before the courts.