Court upholds 12-year term for vicious kidnapper

EDMONTON Alberta’s highest court has upheld a 12-year sentence for a man who cut off his victim’s thumb during an abduction.

But a dissenting opinion means the case can automatically be appealed to the Supreme Court.

Steven Vollrath was convicted in 2016 of kidnapping, aggravated assault, possession of a weapon and impersonating a police officer.

His victim, Richard Suter, was taken a year earlier from his Edmonton home by three masked men who tortured him and left him in the snow.

Suter was awaiting trial at the time for crashing his SUV into a restaurant patio, killing two-yearold Geo Mounsef.

The Court of Appeal ruled Vollrath’s sentence was appropriate, but a dissenting judge said he would have reduced the term to nine years.

Court heard that the abduction could have been a vigilante act, but there was no evidence to prove it or to connect Vollrath to the child’s family.

“It appears that this was a revenge kidnapping that was well planned,” said the Appeal Court’s majority decision.

It detailed how Vollrath purchased fake police-like gear and, with two others, went to Suter’s home late at night. They handcuffed the retired businessman in front of his wife, put a bag over his head and forced him outside in a bathrobe and boots. He was then driven to a remote location and forced to kneel in the snow, where his left thumb was amputated.

“The appellant and others left the complainant unconscious, bleeding and alone in a snowbank in the midst of a harsh Alberta winter,” the court wrote.