Man requests longer sentence
In an unusual turn of events, a man from Marystown guilty of trafficking prescription drugs requested that the provincial court in Grand Bank give him a longer sentence.
Chad Emberley, who pleaded guilty to charges of trafficking oxycodone and Ritalin, possessing Demerol and breaching probation, asked the court for a longer sentence.
“Counsel for the accused said that his client did not want the enhanced credit (of time-and-a-half) for the remand time, because it would have the effect of reducing the sentence from a federal sentence to a sentence served in a provincial institution,” Judge Harold Porter explained in the written decision on sentencing. Despite the usual practice of enhanced credit for time spent on remand, the accused wanted to be credited with time spent on remand on a 1:1 basis.”
A sentence of two years or more results in an inmate being kept in a federal prison.
According to an agreed statement of facts, on March 5, 2018, the police received an anonymous tip alleging Emberley, who was known to police, was making a run to collect Ritalin for sale.
He was seen by police exiting a local pharmacy before he got into his vehicle and drove to an address known to police as a drug house. Upon exiting the residence, he was stopped by police.
“Of the 360 Ritalin (pills) which had been dispensed to him in compliance with a prescription, he now only had 330,” read the decision. “It appeared that he had traded the Ritalin for Demerol, because he had 30 Demerol tablets, but he did not have a prescription for Demerol. His cellphone was also seized.”
Police said evidence found on the cellphone was consistent with trafficking in methylphenidate (Ritalin), pethidine and oxycodone.
Porter gave a breakdown of the joint submission on sentencing — 900 days in custody, less remand credit, for the Oxycodone offence; 450 days, concurrent, for the Ritalin offence; 120 days, concurrent, for the Demerol offence; and 30 days, consecutive, for the breach of probation.
A DNA order, firearms prohibition for life and victim surcharges were also part of the submission to the court.