Prison term hiked to 16 years for Quebec’s ‘pilot to the stars’

MONTREAL — A Quebec man dubbed the “pilot to the stars” has been sentenced to a total of 16 years in prison after a Quebec court ruled he must serve two prison sentences consecutively.

The Quebec Court of Appeal found that a lower court judge had erred when he sentenced Normand Dubé, 59, to serve nine years in prison concurrently with a previous seven-year sentence.

Dubé, who had been known for transporting Quebec celebrities in his plane, was sentenced to nine years in prison in September 2019 after he was found guilty of arson and making threats against civil servants between 2011 and 2014.

He had previously been sentenced to seven yeas in prison in December 2018 for a 2014 aerial attack on Hydro-Québec lines that cost the utility $28.6 million and plunged 180,000 people into darkness.

In its decision, the threejudge panel wrote that Dubé should have been ordered to serve the two sentences consecutively because the crimes were separate, conducted at different times and had different victims.

While the court acknowledged that the new sentence — a total of 16 years minus credit for time served — was severe, it said it remains reasonable because Dubé’s crimes were serious, premeditated and he didn’t show remorse.

In their decision, the judges said that it was important to denounce Dubé’s crimes because, out of a desire for personal revenge, he had targeted public officials who had exercised their duties in an impartial and disinterested manner.

The original sentence was appealed by the prosecution, which had asked for a consecutive sentence at trial.

Dubé was placed on the province’s most wanted list in December after he failed to report to a detention centre when his bail was revoked by the Court of Appeal.

He turned himself in to police on Feb. 3.