Conditional sentence for mom guilty of drug offence

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This article was published 07/12/2012 (4656 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A “stash” woman who allowed her home to become a flophouse and storage space for more than $10,000 in cocaine has received a break in the form of a conditional sentence.

The sentence reflected the “exceptional” effort she made to change her life — a lifestyle of drugs and partying is gone, to be replaced by the life of a devoted mother.

Crown attorney Mark Lafreniere noted that the offender received one of the most positive pre-sentence reports he has seen in 11 years.

“She’s completely turned her life around at this point, it appears,” Lafreniere told Justice John Menzies in Brandon Court of Queen’s Bench on Thursday.

Jennifer Ashley Berg, 21, pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking and the following details of her reformed life were shared in court.

The bust credited with changing Berg’s life for the better happened on April 23, 2010.

Lafreniere said police received information that co-accused Tyler Brent Cairns was trafficking cocaine from a Brandon home.

Police raided the Regent Crescent residence and found Berg and Cairns in a second-floor bedroom.

It was Berg’s home, but Cairns had been living there for a couple of months.

As Berg attended to her six-month-old son, police searched the home.

In the bedroom, officers found a bag that held 77 grams of cocaine stuffed inside one of Berg’s shoes. About another gram of cocaine was found in Cairns’ shorts which were lying on the bedroom floor.

In the basement, police found a gym bag that contained an electric grinder contaminated with cocaine, a cocaine “cutting” agent and pieces of what was believed to be a cocaine press.

Another 29 grams of cocaine was later found in a mandarin orange box that was stashed in the back corner of the basement laundry room. There was also a digital scale on top of a kitchen cupboard.

In total, there was 106 grams of cocaine with an estimated street value of $10,500.

Court heard that Berg was in the midst of an addiction and had allowed her home to become a base for street-level drug dealing.

Cairns and another man, who was never charged, would go to Winnipeg to pick up large amounts of cocaine, return to Brandon, break it down, cut it, weigh it and sell it in bars.

Berg wasn’t involved in the sales but allowed the men to stash and cut the cocaine in her home.

She did this because she had access to free cocaine.

Before the bust, Berg didn’t have a criminal record. But the single mother spiraled into a life of alcohol and drug abuse after having a traumatic experience when she was 12 years old.

While partying, she’d met Cairns and the other man involved in the drug operation and that’s how they came to use her home.

In court, Lafreniere and defence lawyer Patrick Sullivan joined to recommend an 18-month conditional sentence for Berg.

Lafreniere pointed to the changes Berg has made in her life following the drug bust.

On June 12, she entered her guilty plea and two days later supplied a statement against her co-accused and received nothing in return.

She did that even though the other man said to be involved in the drug operation had beaten her in an apparent attempt to keep her quiet. At one point, Berg also turned down a bribe.

When it came to Cairns there were problems with the Crown’s case.

But Berg was willing to testify against him and Cairns recently entered a guilty plea as his trial was set to begin.

Menzies agreed that if it weren’t for Berg’s co-operation, Cairns would have “walked.”

Instead, Cairns pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking. He received 18 months in jail on top of six months he had already spent in pre-sentence custody.

Cairns disagrees with Berg’s account. He maintains that he knew little about the cocaine and that he was just helping out the friend who was never charged.

Berg, who has taken addictions counselling and no longer uses drugs and alcohol, has met another man and is now described as a devoted mother of two children.

Her pre-sentence report gave her a very rare “low risk” to reoffend rating.

Menzies gave Berg an 18-month conditional sentence, commonly described as a jail sentence to be served at home, and spared her from a common “absolute” curfew which typically comes with such sentences.

An absolute curfew would have confined Berg to her property for 24 hours per day, save for a number of exceptions.

Because of her role as a mother of two young children, Menzies imposed a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew for the first six months of her sentence, then a 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew for the remaining 12 months.

» ihitchen@brandonsun.com