A drug dealer caught with heroin in his golf bag was sentenced to a year in prison recently.
Judge Joanne Challenger sentenced Cuong Manh Nguyen, 33, in North Vancouver provincial court on Oct. 7 after he pleaded guilty to possession for the purpose of trafficking.
Nguyen was pulled over for speeding on Highway 1 in 2013 when North Vancouver RCMP officers found crack cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin all packed for resale in a satchel “hidden in the ventilation” of Nguyen’s Acura, according to court documents. Police discovered more than 50 grams of narcotics in Nguyen’s satchel and man-purse but the big cache was in a golf bag in his trunk, where police recovered 167 grams of heroin.
Besides the drugs, police also catalogued “many cellphones,” pepper spray and a collapsible baton.
Nguyen “wanted extra money for his upcoming wedding and honeymoon,” according to Judge Joanne Challenger’s ruling.
The Crown prosecutor pushed for a sentence of 12 to 15 months while Nguyen’s counsel argued for a 90-day intermittent sentence followed by three years of probation. Nguyen’s counsel suggested the “ongoing disruption and embarrassment of reporting weekly” to a correctional officer would be a sufficient deterrent.
While Challenger acknowledged Nguyen’s clean history and good character, the aggravating circumstances in the case were the amount and type of drugs he was carrying, as well as “the fact that his offence was motivated solely by greed.”
The judge noted in her ruling that Nguyen “made a free choice” to sell drugs. She inferred that – based on the alterations to his vehicle – his involvement in drug trafficking had been ongoing when police caught him.
“I find I must temper my sentence to ensure that Mr. Nguyen and his family are not overly impacted by the experience of his imprisonment,” she stated, referring to Nguyen’s wife and young child. “I find his involvement to be mid-level and not as a street-level distributor for others. I do, however, find that he was not the operating mind of this trafficking scheme.”
Challenger sentenced Nguyen to between 12 and 15 months in prison, quoting a fellow judge who previously ruled that “absent exceptional circumstances,” British Columbia drug traffickers should expect to go to prison.
The judge credited Nguyen for showing contrition and submitting a guilty plea. “He acknowledges responsibility for his offence and he understands the seriousness of his conduct and, in particular, the impact of the distribution of hard drugs in our society. He is remorseful.”
