November 26, 1998
Dope dealer's crime equals double the time
An Iqaluit dope dealer's time remand was considered punishment enough for convictions on two drug-related charges.
ANNETTE BOURGEOIS
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT — Michael Noah thought that five months of remand time at the Baffin Correctional Centre was punishment enough for his crimes.
Noah's defense attorney and the Crown prosecutor both thought so too, and entered a joint submission on sentencing to that effect before an Alberta judge in Iqaluit last Friday.
Judge F. W. Coward of Lethbridge, Alta., agreed, and sentenced Noah to "time served" on two drug-related charges.
"You've already been punished, in effect, for your actions and no further sentence in my view is appropriate," Coward told Noah at a sentencing hearing Friday afternoon.
The 23-year-old Noah was arrested last March, along with 28 others in the Northwest Territories, British Columbia and Quebec, after a two-year RCMP investigation into Iqaluit's illicit drug trade.
For five months following this arrest, Noah was held in custody at the Baffin Correctional Centre in Iqaluit.
Remand time is considered to be double the regular prison time because of the uncomfortable conditions of remand custody. That makes those five months equal to 10 months of time served, instead of the actual five.
Noah was released on his own recognizance and $5,000 bond August 27, 1998.
Noah, who had no previous drug-related convictions, recently pleaded guilty to the charges. When asked if he had anything to say before sentencing, Noah told the court not to expect a return visit from him.
"In the five months I spent in BCC, I did a lot of thinking and you're not going to see me here again," the father of a four-year-old daughter and former Town of Iqaluit water-truck driver told the court.
As evidence, the Crown entered conversations recorded by RCMP in an Iqaluit home on Sept. 23, 1997 and Oct. 7, 1997. In the September conversation, Noah is heard talking with convicted drug dealer Nuyalea Kipanik.
In September of this year, Kipanik, 25, who was also arrested during the March RCMP sweep, pleaded guilty to one count of trafficking narcotics, two counts of conspiracy to traffic in a controlled substance and one count of breaching an undertaking by failing to keep the peace and be of good behaviour.
Kipanik is currently serving a four-year prison sentence.
During their conversation, Noah and Kipanik discussed how to cut and sell cannabis resin. The conversation centered around how much profit could be expected from the sale of 15 grams of the drug.
The Crown suggested that both men appeared to be under the influence of a narcotic at the time of the conversation.