Bail granted for man accused of crashing stolen vehicle into car dealership
Bail was granted Wednesday for a 27-year-old Red Deer man alleged to have crashed a stolen vehicle through a local car dealership early New Year’s morning.
Despite the Crown’s opposition, Robert Handy was granted release on $2,500 cash bail, with the condition he live under a curfew with his mother in Red Deer.
Medicine Hat police report that on Jan. 1, they responded to Davis GMC Buick on the Trans-Canada Way, for a reported break and enter, as a vehicle stolen from a Ross Glen residence had been driven through the doors of the business. Later that morning, police unsuccessfully attempted to perform a traffic stop on a truck being driven erratically.
Police observed the same vehicle later that same morning, and successfully pursued and arrested the driver — which then led them connecting the driver to the car dealership incident.
Handy is charged with break and enter, theft, two counts of possession of stolen property over $5,000, dangerous driving, three counts of breaching his probation, resisting arrest, possession of stolen property under $5,000, and possessing break and enter tools.
Fair Trade Act
A guilty plea was entered Wednesday for a 49-year-old Medicine Hat man for breaking the Fair Trade Act.
Statement of facts read in stated that Gerald Thurber accepted a $1,000 deposit from a local resident in August for doing concrete work for a job he estimated would cost $7,140.
The work was never completed, nor was the deposit ever returned — and the resident learned that the accused was never properly licensed to collect funds before a job is finished, as is required under the Free Trade Act.
Thurber was fined $1,000 under the Fair Trade Act, and will be required to pay $1,000 in restitution.
Fraud
A 67-day sentence was handed down to a Medicine Hat man for fraud-related crimes.
Leigh Semple pled guilty to uttering a forged document when he altered a Canada Post parcel delivery notice with his own name so it appeared he had permission to pick up the parcel.
The parcel was $165 in vitamins and digestive aids, and police were contacted after its intended recipient looked into why the parcel had not arrived. The victim did not know Semple, nor gave him permission to pick up the parcel.
Semple also pled guilty to taking his girlfriend’s father’s credit card, attempting to activate it, and then obtaining $468 in cash advances from it.
“Whatever plan there was, it certainly wasn’t sophisticated,” said Judge Jerry LeGrandeur. “So unsophisticated, it’s ... well I won’t say it.”
During sentencing, the Crown highlighted a history of past convictions for frauds, break and enters and other similar offences.
Seven days of the total sentence come from a failure to appear in court, while Semple also pled guilty to multiple breaches of a previous Conditional Sentence Order.