Man gets probation for series of crimes

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This article was published 26/09/2022 (1220 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Judge Patrick Sullivan sentenced a 30-year-old man from Lloydminster to two years of supervised probation Thursday after he pleaded guilty to six different offences in court, which includes several weapons charges.

Outside of possessing a weapon for a dangerous purpose and committing assault with a weapon, Austin Paulson also admitted to unlawfully entering the Keystone Motor Inn and repeatedly breaching the conditions of his release over the last year.

While not originally from Brandon, local police arrested Paulson multiple times since last summer, with defence lawyer Jonathan Richert attributing these run-ins with the law to his client’s status as a homeless person who is suffering from mental illness.

Paulson’s first major encounter with police took place on July 12, 2021, after he threatened a Best Western Plus employee with a knife just outside the hotel on Middleton Avenue.

While Crown attorney Yaso Mathu made it clear that Paulson didn’t make physical contact with the employee, she said he is still being charged with assault based on the threatening manner with which he approached the victim.

Mathu said this behaviour is especially concerning, since Paulson had been harassing Best Western staff for days before this July 12 encounter took place.

“It’s very disturbing that he then chooses to take out that aggression by threatening an employee who is just minding his own business, and going about his way, by then threatening him with a knife,” Mathu said in court Thursday.

“Obviously he didn’t touch him with the knife or do anything like that, but needless to say that anyone who is approached in that way is going to feel afraid.”

Brandon police later located and arrested Paulson at the Walmart Supercentre, although he was eventually released from custody.

However, Paulson ended up in police custody once again eight days later.

After responding to an unrelated incident at the Provincial Building, officers spotted Paulson openly drinking alcohol nearby and detained him.

Police then discovered that Paulson was also carrying a pocket knife at the time, which violated the conditions of his release order.

While Paulson stayed out of trouble for the rest of 2021, he got arrested for a third time on Feb. 12 for sneaking into a room at the Keystone Motor Inn without paying.

However, Mathu noted that the accused didn’t cause any damage to the motel while on the premises.

Paulson’s final arrest took place on the evening of March 15, when police observed him carrying a large hunting knife in public, which again violated the conditions of his probation.

“And this isn’t just a pocket knife,” Mathu said. “This is a huge, seven-inch serrated blade. The police were able to see it from their vehicle.”

Because of all these offences, Mathu suggested that Paulson be sentenced to 115 days of custody, although she admitted that he has already spent more than that amount of time (with enhanced credit) behind bars.

As such, the Crown attorney recommended that Paulson be sentenced to two years of supervised probation, during which time he must abide by a variety of conditions like abstaining from possessing weapons and avoiding local businesses like Best Western Plus or the Keystone Motor Inn.

Richert endorsed this recommendation for sentencing, telling Sullivan that his client will use this period of probation as a “fresh start.”

Richert said his client’s downward spiral didn’t begin until a family member allegedly drove him from Lloydminster to Brandon a couple years ago and left him “on the side of the road” after the vehicle was seized by police.

Without a home or many worldly possessions at his disposal, Richert said his client resorted to stealing from stores to survive and carrying around knives for protection on the street.

“And he’d also carrying them to hunt for food, like gophers and things of that nature,” the defence lawyer said.

“Now, that might sound strange to us, but you can imagine for a person whose circumstances are ‘I have nothing to eat, I have no money,’ [their] choices are stealing from a store or kill some wildlife in a park or something of that nature.”

Richert also mentioned that his client’s tendency to reoffend is partially because of his mental health issues, which cause him to constantly forget important bits of information.

“Mr. Paulson has difficulty remembering things. He would often ask me the same questions within the same conversation and not remember that I had answered him,” the defence lawyer said.

“And at another point, Mr. Paulson said to me ‘I didn’t remember I was on conditions [not to] carry a knife.”

While Sullivan sympathized with Paulson’s circumstances, and ultimately endorsed this joint recommendation for sentencing, he urged the 30-year-old to abide by the conditions of his probation, especially when it comes to the weapons prohibition stipulation.

“These knives, or any weapon that you possess … carrying them is bound to get you into more trouble than they’re worth, and I don’t mean just with the law,” Sullivan said.

“If you possess a knife like that in a scuffle, it’s just as likely to be used against you as it is to be some form of defence. It’s a horrible idea to carry them around, notwithstanding the fact that you weren’t supposed to be in possession of them anyway.”

Paulson appeared in court on Thursday via video conference and thanked Sullivan for approving his release.

» kdarbyson@brandonsun.com

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