Man gets 15 years for ‘active role’ in killing
Two others handed prison terms in the 2013 death of Lukas Strasser-Hird
More than three years after they helped beat and stab to death Lukas Strasser-Hird outside a downtown nightclub, three men were sentenced Monday, one of them to 15 years in prison.
Franz Cabrera received that amount of time, while Assmar Shlah — also convicted of seconddegree murder in the swarming assault — was handed 12 years for his role.
Convicted last June of manslaughter in the case, Joch Pouk was handed a seven-year term by Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Glen Poelman.
All sentences must be served before parole eligibility.
“He was an active and vocal participant caught up in a gang-style blood lust,” said Poelman in addressing Cabrera.
He said the man deserved the longest sentence because he used keys to stab Strasser-Hird and “played a more active role.”
As for Shlah, Poelman said blood found on his shoe proved he’d kicked a vulnerable Strasser-Hird in what amounted to “a brutal and savage” onslaught.
He was “part of a group attack on a defenceless young man who was beaten and stabbed to death that was, of course, reprehensible.”
The crime occurred Nov. 23, 2013 in an alley behind the Vinyl nightclub on 10 Ave. S.W. and began during a brief scrap in front of the bar after the victim reportedly objected to racial slurs hurled at a staffer.
During sentencing submissions, defence lawyers employed similar arguments used in the trial, seeking to diminish their clients’ role in the frenzy of violence in the dark alley.
Shlah maintains his innocence, said his lawyer Balfour Der and “the death had been caused already when Mr. Shlah comes in.”
All were portrayed by their lawyers as otherwise upstanding young men, Cabrera being a onetime altar server, said his counsel Gavin Wolch.
Good kids don’t kill people, not even once. Hopefully karma takes over (for them when they’re in prison.)
“It’s a shame the sentencing judge only gets to see the accused on the worst day of their lives,” said Wolch, adding Cabrera was extremely drunk at the time.
Justice Poelman said none of the three have showed much remorse and Dale Hird, Strasser-Hird’s father, said he’d received a halfhearted call of contrition from one defendant’s family that he couldn’t accept.
“Good kids don’t kill people, not even once,” said Hird.
“Hopefully karma takes over (in prison).”