Inmate sentenced to 18 months for role in jailhouse beating

A Brandon inmate received an 18-month sentence for taking part in a jailhouse beating.

“This was a terrible assault,” Judge Shauna Hewitt-Michta said during a sentencing hearing in Brandon provincial court on Monday. “Assaults that happen in a jailhouse setting … it’s not like people can run away or get away.”

Addison Laroque, 26, pleaded guilty to single counts of aggravated assault and assault causing bodily harm.

However, ahead of sentencing submissions, the Crown stayed the aggravated assault charge since Laroque didn’t touch one of the two victims. The Crown had previously accepted the guilty plea on the basis that Laroque was a party to the offence.

Prosecutor Yaso Mathu and defence lawyer Bob Harrison put forward a joint recommendation of 18 months of jail time.

Mathu outlined the facts and played a video that captured the assaults at Brandon Correctional Centre on July 5, 2024.

“Corey Amyotte enters the room and is charged by (Michael) Hanska, who immediately punches (him), and the four other co-accused … then attack Amyotte while he’s lying on the ground, kicking and stomping his head,” Mathu said.

Hanska was sentenced to life in prison in May for second-degree murder in an unrelated incident and received two two-and-a-half-year sentences — one for each victim — for this assault, to be served concurrently with his life sentence.

During the assault on Amyotte, Laroque looked in to see the action but backed off.

In the meantime, the inmates “randomly” started assaulting Mathew Roulette as well, Mathu said. Laroque involved himself by kicking Roulette several times while he was down.

The other four co-accused continued to move back and forth between Amyotte and Roulette, with Amyotte receiving the most damage.

“The unit was covered … there was blood and a mess everywhere,” Mathu said.

Amyotte had multiple cuts on his face that required stitches and staples, and a CT scan showed a brain bleed and hematomas from his scalp to his cheek, she said.

She said Roulette was “significantly luckier,” sustaining three cuts to his face that were treated with stitches and glue, and bruising to his ribs.

“We know institutional violence is a very, very serious matter,” Mathu said. “These people are all … to use colloquialisms, like sitting ducks, sardines in a can, squashed together,” she said.

“Mr. Roulette had no chance, and you can see, it was completely unprovoked. Mr. Roulette was just sitting there minding his own business.”

She said Laroque is lucky that Roulette didn’t sustain more serious injuries.

Mathu said Laroque is no stranger to the criminal justice system, but the proposed sentence considered the guilty pleas and Gladue factors.

Harrison said Laroque alleged that one of the men in another unit had been beaten up by one of the victims the day before the assaults. Harrison said it looked like this was “payback.”

“(Laroque) said he was shocked at how far it went. It escalated far beyond what he thought would happen,” Harrison said, adding that he certainly regrets it.

Harrison said Laroque didn’t have much chance in life — Child and Family Services apprehended him as a baby, and he never knew his parents.

“I asked him how many foster homes he had. He said he stopped counting at 20.”

He said there was alcohol abuse and violence in foster homes and that he had no connection to his Indigenous heritage.

While it won’t be easy, Harrison said Laroque wants to stay out of trouble going forward and knows that he got carried away during the assault.

Hewitt-Michta said she appreciated Laroque’s guilty pleas because institutional assaults can be difficult and time-consuming for the court if taken to trial.

She went along with the joint recommendation of 18 months in custody and followed it up with one year of unsupervised probation.

“Get involved in something like this again, and you should expect it to be much worse. And in fact, I expect you to go to the penitentiary,” she said.

Laroque has the equivalent of 438 days of time already served, leaving him with a go-forward sentence of 112 days.

» sanderson@brandonsun.com