Jail will be ‘difficult,’ judge tells man in ATM crime spree

WATERLOO REGION — They had a plan when they broke into the darkened building. Yank out the cash-dispensing automated teller, take it somewhere else and bust it open to steal the cash inside.

The plan had worked elsewhere in recent months. It was unfolding as planned April 12, 2016, at a club in Burlington. Then the police showed up to spoil it.

That’s when Fasal Mushtaq, 21, chose to flee in the stolen pickup truck that he was driving.

Police tried to catch him. They set up a spike belt. He evaded it. Mushtaq reached speeds of up to 155 km/h, screaming along Highway 403 and then Highway 6, rushing back to Waterloo Region. He was almost home to Kitchener when he crashed on a curve on rural Chilligo Road, abandoned the truck and ran.

Mushtaq got away that night but not for long. Arrested three months later, he was sentenced Monday in a Kitchener courtroom to seven months in jail for his part in a string of ATM and vehicle thefts. He’ll have 18 months of probation to follow.

It troubles Justice Gary Hearn that when police showed up in Burlington, Mushtaq chose to flee, putting officers and the public at risk.

“This is not a flight down a country road,” Hearn said after Mushtaq pleaded guilty to dangerous driving. “That’s a pretty serious set of circumstances.”

Mushtaq, now 23, pleaded guilty as well to three break-and-enters that count among the crimes. They were all in 2016: they happened on March 14, April 9, and April 12.

He’s the third man to plead guilty in a dramatic crime spree that cost southern Ontario businesses more than $1 million and triggered an investigation by nine police forces and the OPP. The convicted men face sentences between seven and 12 months. Three co-accused are scheduled to be tried early in 2018.

In total, police alleged 80 crimes occurred, including 53 in Waterloo Region. Local targets included the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium, Fairview Park mall, the Stampede Corral and an Elmira gas station. At the Auditorium,

thieves smashed a Jeep pickup truck through side doors and ripped two ATMs from the floor.

Court heard Mushtaq was a man with a low-paying job who had not been in trouble with the law as an adult until he joined the crime spree. His role was to help as a driver.

The only motivation Hearn could discern was that his friends were involved and Mushtaq wanted more money, but not because he faced any debt, need or addiction.

The accused joined the crimes “eyes wide open for no apparent reason” other than “for some misguided sense of friendship with some of the co-accused,” Hearn said.

Mushtaq’s parents sat quietly in court while their son, dressed in a white hoodie, was sentenced and taken to jail.

“His parents are shocked and I suspect embarrassed by his conduct,” Hearn said, describing the family as caring and supportive. Mushtaq’s lawyer declined to comment, outside the courtroom.

The judge gave Mushtaq credit for pleading guilty, for a generally positive pre-sentence report, and for obeying strict bail conditions that kept him under house arrest in his parents’ home. “He’s had some anger management problems,” the judge said, citing difficulties the accused had as a teenager.

While on bail, Mushtaq was only let out of the house when accompanied by a parent or to go to the job he kept. “He’s learned his lesson I’m sure,” Hearn said, before warning Mushtaq that jail “is going to be difficult for you.”