Drug user wanted lengthy sentence in jail

Left DNA and other clues behind after break-ins in hopes of getting treatment for addiction

KITCHENER — A Kitchener criminal who asked for a long jail sentence to help quit a serious drug problem got his wish on Tuesday.

A judge agreed to a proposal from the Crown and defence for 25 months in prison.

Facts read out in court suggest Daniel Verbaan, 30, wanted to get caught.

He admitted breaking into a house on Glasgow Street in Kitchener last December, ransacking it and stealing goods worth $54,000. His haul included a 2011 Acura SUV in the garage, jewelry, electronics, a safe and credit cards.

Verbaan, who was on probation at the time, drank a bottle of water in the house and left it there. DNA from the bottle later came back as a match to his DNA on file.

Verbaan used one of the credit cards multiple times and tried to open some sort of online account in the name of the card’s owner, court was told.

The address he gave was for an apartment where Verbaan previously lived. The email address he provided included the words Never Forget, the same words he has tattooed across his chest.

On Jan. 2 at 1 p.m., he walked into the Crowne Plaza hotel in Kitchener, unhooked a TV from the wall and walked out with it. Eight days later, also in the afternoon, he stole a TV from the wall at the Fergus Place retirement home in Kitchener.

Security video captured both crimes.

Verbaan was arrested on March 9 and released.

On April 13, he forced open the door of an office on University Avenue West in Waterloo and stole cash, keys and blank cheques. He drank part of a Sprite and left the can behind. He was identified by security camera video.

Verbaan uses meth and heroin, and wanted a stiff jail sentence to get help.

Justice Thomas McKay agreed to 25 months in prison, Verbaan’s first trip to the penitentiary. McKay told him he will have access to resources to help make positive changes. Verbaan said he plans to use them.