Dangerous driver heads back to jail
A notorious repeat offender was sentenced to three years and four months in jail for causing a multi-vehicle crash in West Kelowna.
John Michael Aronson was handed the sentence by Judge Clarke Burnett on Tuesday.
The Crown had asked that Aronson, who sometimes used the alias “Johnny Blaze,” be jailed for four years.
Aronson has more than 30 criminal convictions. He was found guilty of dangerous driving, failing to stop for police, driving while prohibited, and breach of probation in connection with the Sept. 23, 2019 crash near the corner of Highway 97 and Boucherie Road.
Just a few hours earlier that day, Aronson had been released from custody after promising a different judge he regretted his life of crime and was going to go straight.
“I’m sorry for what I did. You’re not going to see me back in here,” an apparently contrite Aronson had told the judge.
Instead, he got behind the wheel of a car, fled from police, raced across the W.R. Bennett bridge, and crashed into oncoming vehicles. At his sentencing hearing, Crown counsel Dave Ruse said it was “purely fortuitous” that nobody other than Aronson was physically injured in the crash.
Aronson’s previous crimes included a high-profile incident in January 2019 when he was shot by police outside the Orchard Park mall branch of the CIBC after stealing a car.
“He has been pretty much offending continuously for 17 years,” Ruse said of Aronson at the May 5 sentencing hearing. “He persistently engages in criminal conduct, and he represents a serious threat to the public.”
In an email, Crown Prosecution Service spokesman Dan McLaughlin said Aronson was sentenced Tuesday to a total of 1,206 days. Aronson received credit for 842 days of pre-sentence custody, so he will spend another 364 days in jail.
Aronson was also ordered to serve two years on probation after his release from jail, and was prohibited from driving for 10 years.