One year for trying to smuggle in pot, knives

KITCHENER — A man who was intentionally jailed in a failed scheme to smuggle in weapons and drugs will have a few more months behind bars to think about his actions.

On March 26, Blake Piper, 31, tightly wrapped two small knives, five packets of marijuana and two packets of tobacco in electrical tape and put them in his rectum.

Just before 2 a.m., he threw a rock through a Kitchener convenience store window and waited for police to arrive. He was arrested and taken to Maplehurst jail in Milton.

His plan was to smuggle the contraband into the jail, but he was foiled by Maplehurst’s body scanner.

Court was originally told the plan was to deliver the goods to his brother-in-law, who was in jail at Maplehurst.

But this week Piper told court he didn’t do it for him.

“He denies that his brotherin-law was part of it … it’s not 100 per cent clear,” his defence lawyer, Adam Rice, said outside the courtroom.

Piper, who was homeless at the time of the crime, pleaded guilty to possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking, possessing a weapon for the purpose of committing a crime and mischief for breaking the window.

He also admitted using a forged document to get a $1,210 payday loan from a Money Mart.

Prosecutor Scott Wheildon sought 18 months in jail, saying knives in Maplehurst could cause injury or death. Rice asked for six months to one year.

“I just wanted to say sorry for what I did,” Piper told Justice Melanie Sopinka. “I know it was a stupid mistake.”

Sopinka sentenced him to one year in jail. After credit for presentence custody, Piper has another five months to serve.

He also must make restitution to Money Mart and give a DNA sample for the national database. He will be on probation for 18 months and faces a 10-year weapons ban.