Judge factors virus into drug sentencing

Convicted drug trafficker to serve two years in jail after being arrested twice in 10-month span in 2019

While the global pandemic should not be seen as a “get out of jail free card,” the current health crisis must be taken into consideration upon sentencing, a local judge said Monday.

“The pandemic and the risk to people in jail, and the risk in particular to Mr. (Hunter) Yzerman, is something that I cannot and should not ignore,” Judge Joseph De Filippis said in Ontario Court of Justice in St. Catharines.

Yzerman, 33, appeared in court via audio link from a Milton correctional facility and was sentenced to two years in a penitentiary on several drugrelated offences.

The federal prosecutor had been seeking a jail term of six years, with credit given for the time the defendant had spent in pretrial custody, which was the equivalent of 18 months.

Defence lawyer V.J. Singh, who advocated for a shorter sentence, said his client has a number of health issues which place him at “huge risk” of contracting COVID-19.

He said conditions at correctional institutions make it an “impossible environment” to practise social distancing.

“What do we do? Do we totally confine them? That would make the time in custody even harder.”

The judge agreed that concerns about the coronavirus must be part of the sentencing equation, but added the sentence imposed must still reflect the gravity of the crime.

Yzerman came to the attention of police in February 2019 in connection with an investigation into drug trafficking in St. Catharines.

He was arrested the following month and police seized more than $3,000 in cocaine and crack cocaine and $2,700 in fentanyl as well as $2,900 in cash.

He was arrested again in November after he was taken from Niagara Detention Centre to the Greater Niagara General Hospital where he was found to have nine grams of fentanyl in his body.

Court heard the defendant has a lengthy criminal record with more than 50 convictions.