TELLER CASHIERED
Woman who plotted bank heist getting boot from Canada
A Calgary bank teller will soon be riding the Marrakech Express.
Kenza Belakziz was sentenced to 18 months in jail for setting up a bank heist.
Her lawyer pleaded that a sentence that long would mean the bad banker would be deported to her native Morocco.
But Justice David Gates said evidence presented by defence lawyer Greg Dunn to reduce her sentence wasn’t enough to get it below six months.
Belakziz pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit robbery in connection with a Nov. 24, 2014, heist at the Mission Bank of Montreal, where she worked.
Cops say she provided confidential information about the branch to her then-boyfriend Saleem Nasery, Lucas Windsor and Matthew Valdes.
She included a list of employees who would be present, the layout of the bank and the various locations where money was stored.
She moved to the U.S. when she was a child then they journeyed to Canada. While the rest of her family became Canadian citizens, Belakziz couldn’t be bothered.
But her lawyer said a medical report indicated that she suffers from PTSD, depression and anxiety. So, she should get a six-month sentence, he argued.
“Mr. Dunn, I have to follow the law,” the judge said. “I can’t use collateral consequences to reduce what is otherwise an appropriate sentence.”
The judge earlier rejected a joint sentencing submission from the Crown and defence asking for a sentence of six months less a day.
“A sentence of over six months is essentially going to banish a girl who has all her ties to Canada, or North America, who hasn’t been to the state of Morocco since she was two,” Dunn pleaded.
Belakziz reportedly tried to back out of the scheme — and even thwart the plot — and that’s why the Crown was willing to cut her some slack.
“She didn’t call the police, she didn’t even stay home, she was still there. It would be a much stronger argument ... if she had actually taken some positive steps to stop this happening,” the judge said last October.