Trafficker wears ‘Cocaine & Caviar’ shirt to sentencing

KITCHENER — In court to be sentenced for cocaine trafficking, Todd Snow wore a T-shirt with the words “Cocaine & Caviar.”

“I don’t think that’s incidental. It shows his attitude,” federal prosecutor Kathleen Nolan said Friday. “I think that’s how Mr. Snow has viewed trafficking drugs: ‘It’s a party.’”

The conviction for selling cocaine last month at a soup kitchen on Victoria Street North in Kitchener was Snow’s 19th trafficking conviction.

Nolan sought at least two years in prison for the latest crime. But after telling Justice Colin Westman he wants to kick drugs, Snow, 53, was sentenced to one year in jail.

Quitting drugs “can be done,” the judge said. “As long as there’s breath, there’s hope.”

Westman started the sentencing hearing by quoting from famed criminal lawyer Clayton Ruby that there is no proof jail prevents crime. “That doesn’t mean we blow up the jails, but it’s not working.”

Defence lawyer Tom Brock called Snow a “social cripple” with no support from family or friends.

The judge said, “I’d be on drugs, too” with no support.

Brock said his client is on a “treadmill” where he sells to feed his own habit. “If there’s no one out there to help him get off the treadmill, some day we’ll find him deceased under a bridge somewhere.”

Snow has spent 20 of the last 37 years in jail. “He hasn’t committed a murder,” Brock said. “All his offences have their beginning in the drug culture.”

Nolan noted Snow sold drugs to “vulnerable” people at the soup kitchen.

While Westman suggested society failed him by not offering help, Nolan saw it another way. “This man has failed society.”

She said Snow has never shown any interest in drug treatment. “We have treatment centres all over the place. There’s nothing to indicate he’s made applications to treatment centres.”

Nolan said the sentence should not be about Snow. “It’s about protecting society.”

But Westman noted Snow lives on the streets and said “this is not the life he wished to have.”

Snow said he wants to get drug treatment. Westman agreed to make the recommendation.