Lenient sentence for assailant overturned

Quebec Appeals Court tacks on an extra year in jail for repeat offender Johnny Mark, who is also facing new criminal charges

JANE GEORGE
Nunatsiaq News

KUUJJUAQ - Convicted woman beater Johnny Mark didn't even want to go back to jail, and now he's facing time in a federal pentitentiary.

The Quebec Appeals Court recently overturned a lower court's lenient sentencing decision, one which would have precluded prison time in the South.

Last November Mark pleaded guilty to a charge of aggravated assault on Maggie Simigak, his common-law partner.

A repeat offender, Mark had already served three penitentiary terms and he begged the court not to send him back to jail. He said that he had found God and insisted that another jail term wouldn't help him.

So, Quebec Court judge Paul Chevalier sentenced Mark to two years, less one day - a conditional sentence he could serve out in the community of Kangirsuk. He was to have respected a curfew, regularly report to police, attend counselling sessions and keep the peace.

But Crown Prosector Nancy McKenna appealed the sentence, and last week in Quebec City, the Appeal Court agreed with her: Mark's original sentence was not severe enough, the higher court ruled.

Mark's sentence for the assault charges has been increased to three years. And since any sentence over two years must be served in a federal institution, Mark is now going to be sent to a federal penitentiary.

New charges

His stay there could even be longer, though: police have laid new sexual assault charges against Mark.

He is also charged with uttering death threats against Simigak as he left a Kuujjuaq courtroom during a recent court appearance.

Judge Chevalier ruled March 4 that Mark had violated the terms of his original conditional sentence.