Ex-Huskie receives 15 months behind bars for trafficking pot
Former University of Saskatchewan Huskies football player Seamus Neary has been sentenced to 15 months in jail for marijuana trafficking after the Crown appealed his sentence.
The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal allowed the Crown’s challenge of Neary’s original sentence of two years’ probation for trafficking marijuana and possessing the proceeds of crime.
In a written decision issued April 25, Justice Ralph Ottenbreit, with Justices Neal Caldwell and Peter Whitmore concurring, ordered Neary to serve concurrent sentences of 15 months for possessing marijuana for the purposes of trafficking, 30 days for possessing psilocybin and six months for possessing the proceeds of crime.
Police investigating a suspected drug dealer in 2014 saw their suspect and another person enter a Saskatoon apartment building with empty backpacks. When they left, the backpacks were full. Police searched the pair and found seven pounds of marijuana in the backpacks. The two carriers directed officers to Neary’s apartment.
In a subsequent search of the suite, they found marijuana, $1,000 in cash, psilocybin mushrooms and a receipt for a storage locker. A search of the locker turned up 13 pounds of marijuana.
Neary was convicted in November 2015. Following his sentencing, he appealed the trial judge’s decision to dismiss his charter application challenging the legislative removal of conditional sentencing as an option for trafficking or possession for the purposes of trafficking if the sentence is less than two years.
Neary’s lawyer argued that because he had no prior record or history of violence, the judge’s application of the legislative amendment was “overbroad.” He also argued that since the government plans to legalize marijuana possession, Neary’s crimes were less serious than those of a pedlar of hard drugs, Ottenbreit noted in the decision.
The appeal court dismissed that argument.
“The principles of denunciation and deterrence are paramount in the sentencing of offences such as the ones committed by Mr. Neary. He clearly trafficked drugs for profit. It is otherwise law-abiding citizens like Mr. Neary who must be deterred from engaging in illegal activities which appear to generate quick and easy money,” Ottenbreit wrote.
With regard to future legalization of pot possession, the court is bound to apply the law as it stands presently, and “in any event, the government has not proposed the decriminalization of trafficking in marijuana,” the decision adds.
The trial judge “overemphasized Mr. Neary’s personal circumstances and failed to take into account the seriousness of the offences and the level of his moral culpability,” Ottenbreit wrote.
The court ordered Neary to surrender himself to the nearest RCMP detachment.