Convicted killer to be locked up for 18 years

The unprovoked and cold-blooded murder of his cellmate will mean a minimum 18 years in prison for convicted killer Marlon Ledesma, a judge ruled Friday.

Ledesma was convicted in April of second-degree murder in the strangulation of his Calgary Remand Centre cellmate Alvin Chiniquay, in September 2016.

Justice Kim Nixon agreed with Crown prosecutor Todd Buziak that a significant increase in the mandatory minimum parole eligibility of 10 years was warranted for Ledesma’s automatic life sentence.

Buziak had argued parole ineligibility should be set at 20 years.

Defence lawyer Andrea Serink said Ledesma’s mental health issues and Indigenous background warranted a parole ineligibility of between 12 and 14 years.

But Nixon found there was no mental health or intellectual concerns significant to reduce Ledesma’s moral culpability for the crime.

Instead, she found the killer with a violent past preyed on a victim who had no avenue of escape.

“Your murder of Mr. Chiniquay was entirely unprovoked, it was the cold-blooded killing of a vulnerable man who could not defend himself,” the Court of Queen’s Bench judge said.

She said despite a courtroom apology from the killer to his victim’s family, Ledesma showed no contrition for his crime.

“I find that Mr. Ledesma has no remorse,” Nixon said.

Video surveillance of the killing showed Ledesma attacked Chiniquay twice in their cell, ultimately choking him to death.