Westman farmer facing four years in jail

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This article was published 11/04/2022 (1433 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Westman farmer Brian Geer is facing four years behind bars for various weapons charges, the most severe of which being possession of a loaded prohibited firearm.

This four-year global sentence is the opinion of Crown attorney Rich Lonstrup, who made the recommendation to Justice Sandra Zinchuk on Monday morning inside a Brandon courtroom.

On top of jail time, Lonstrup is also asking the Crown to slap Geer with a lifetime firearm prohibition.

Having served as prosecutor since the case first went to trial in November 2020, Lonstrup used Monday’s hearing to remind the court of Geer’s crimes. The list of charges includes possessing a loaded prohibited firearm without a licence, three counts of improperly storing or transporting a firearm, resisting arrest and possessing a firearm without a licence.

These charges stem from an Aug. 3, 2018 incident, when members of the Killarney RCMP caught Greer driving around town with a loaded Remington 870 Wingmaster 12-gauge shotgun (shortened) and a loaded Remington 7600 6mm pump action rifle in his vehicle. The truck also contained several boxes of ammunition.

The following day, police obtained a search warrant for Geer’s home, where they found another loaded Remington 870 Wingmaster 12-gauge shotgun in a gun case under the bed of the master bedroom. Officers discovered shotgun shells on the premises.

Zinchuk ultimately found Geer guilty on six charges in February 2021 and later denied his application to have these charges stayed due to what he saw as unreasonable court delays.

On Monday, Lonstrup reiterated how this kind of firearm storage and transportation is worthy of incarceration, since it poses a danger to the community at large.

“We make people lock their guns and trigger-lock their guns during transportation because when guns get stolen, that is the direct pipeline to how they enter into the criminal underworld, and then they really do get used in some of the worst possible offences,” the Crown prosecutor said.

Lonstrup also clarified that Geer was carrying these loaded guns in his vehicle as a means of “protection,” believing he is the victim of a wide-ranging conspiracy that involves members of the RCMP, the Canadian government and the community of Killarney.

Geer maintains these beliefs and asked Zinchuk on Monday if the Manitoba justice system is going to prosecute all the people who conspired against him over the years.

“What’s going to happen to the dentist who swabbed my mouth with a f—king virus so bad, that I can’t even eat hot food?” Geer said as his wife Shauna tried to calm him in the background.

“What’s going to happen to the people like that who have stolen, destroyed and basically raped my entire family?”

Lonstrup repeated on Monday that Geer is not on trial because of his beliefs. Rather, the defendant, who served as his own defence attorney throughout the legal proceedings, is facing up to four years in jail because of how his beliefs manifested into action.

“Mr. Geer showed open contempt for our gun laws,” the Crown prosecutor said.

“To his credit, he never denied the possession of the firearms or his lack of licensing or improper storage. To his detriment, the entirety of the defence he presented was his lifelong persecution. It certainly appeared to me that he wanted you, the court, to understand that he had a legitimate basis for keeping loaded guns at the ready.”

Lonstrup said Zinchuk should factor Geer’s antagonism toward the community into her sentence, in the hopes of preventing any further escalation that could result in an armed confrontation in the future.

“What happens to the fellow motorist that cuts him off or gets him in a fender-bender, or the banker that denies him a loan or a line of credit?” he said.

“Deterrence and denunciation is by far the most paramount and pressing goal of sentencing in this case.”

In a written statement submitted to the court, Geer asked Zinchuk to grant him a conditional sentence order (CSO) instead of jail time, arguing that he has followed all the restrictions the court has imposed since his initial arrest in August 2018.

“He has not breached any conditions, nor been a threat or a disturbance to anyone or anything in over three years and eight months,” Shauna Nichol-Geer said on her husband’s behalf. “He has proved that a conditional sentence to be served at his place of residence would be appropriate.”

However, Lonstrup advised against this kind of sentence, believing that Geer would not abide by the restrictions set out in a CSO given his propensity to disparage the province’s justice system throughout the trial.

“No judge in his or her right mind would give a CSO to someone who holds the system in open contempt,” he said.

“I can’t envision how Mr. Geer would cooperate with that level of supervision, which is supposed to be intense and binding.”

Geer closed out his remarks on Monday by calling Manitoba’s justice system a “joke.”

“I’m bloody sick of you people and I’m sick of being lied to. I’m sick of having my life stolen,” he said. “Throw me in jail. Do whatever the f—k you want.”

While Zinchuk didn’t render a verdict on Monday, she scheduled Geer’s official sentencing for the second week of June.

» kdarbyson@brandonsun.com

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