B.C. man convicted of fentanyl trafficking after judge rejects claim drugs belonged to a friend
A B.C. man has been convicted of possessing fentanyl for the purpose of trafficking despite claiming the drugs were not his – a defence the judge said he could not "accept or even entertain."
Kerry Wallace Chang was found guilty in a Nanaimo court this week and the decision was published Thursday.
Chang admitted to possessing 62.24 grams of fentanyl found in his bedroom when the Emergency Response Team raided the home in November of 2020 – but said it was for his personal use. He also "conceded" that an additional 471 grams of fentanyl found in the living room were for the purpose of trafficking but claimed it belonged to a friend.
"He denies possessing it in the legal sense of the word," Justice Robin A.M. Baird wrote.
The investigation into allegations that drugs were being trafficked out of the Nanaimo home was launched after the RCMP received a report from the Vancouver Island Regional Correctional Centre that an inmate was using jailhouse phones "to communicate with people, including Mr. Chang, about drug trafficking in the Nanaimo area," the court heard.
Recordings of those phone calls were entered into evidence and showed that Chang was "dealing fentanyl to street retailers from his house," the decision said, also noting that Chang admitted that selling drugs had been his "only occupation for a long time."
Chang did not dispute this. Rather, he said that he stopped trafficking in fentanyl roughly four months before the raid, after he was seriously hurt in a car accident. The injuries he sustained were serious and included a broken neck, back and sternum, a shattered ankle and internal injuries.
"Mr. Chang claims, in effect, that he was forced to abandon his fentanyl trafficking business because of physical incapacity," according to the decision
The judge didn’t buy it.
"I do not for a second believe that Mr. Chang suddenly stopped trafficking fentanyl because of his car accident," the judge said.
"Mr. Chang was heavily entrenched in the local fentanyl trafficking scene, and would not voluntarily have relinquished his habitual lucrative trade activities notwithstanding his injuries."
Baird also said he was not persuaded that Chang would not have been physically capable of running his trafficking operation.
"It involved no energy or effort and, in fact, was perfectly suited to a person with physical limitations," the decision says,.
While the judge said the evidence supported Chang's claim that the home was a "flop house" frequented by people who used and sold drugs, he said he could not believe that a friend of Chang's would have left the amount of drugs he did in the living room.
"No drug dealer in his right mind would leave inventory of this value unattended, especially in a houseful of fentanyl addicts," Baird wrote, saying that the drugs would have had a wholesale value of $10,000 and a street value of up to $90,000.
When it came to the fentanyl in the bedroom, Chang said his injury had turned him into a "raging" fentanyl addict since being injured and that it was all for his own consumption in "large and continuous doses."
Baird said he was willing to concede that some of the drugs were for personal use but that he had "no hesitation in concluding that most of it was intended for sale or distribution, including the product found in his bedroom."
The judge found that the evidence presented in Chang's defence did not raise a reasonable doubt of his guilt.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
BREAKING B.C. serial killer Robert Pickton hospitalized after prison attack
British Columbia serial killer Robert Pickton was attacked in a Quebec prison Sunday in what officials described as a 'major assault.'
Passenger killed, 30 injured as Singapore Airlines flight hits severe turbulence
One passenger was killed and 30 injured after a Singapore Airlines SIAL.SI flight from London hit severe turbulence en route on Tuesday, forcing it to make an emergency landing in Bangkok, officials and the airline said.
Conservatives kick off return to House with new call for Speaker Greg Fergus to resign
Pierre Poilievre's Conservatives returned to the House of Commons on Tuesday with a renewed call for Speaker Greg Fergus to resign, this time over 'very partisan' and 'inflammatory' language used to promote an upcoming event.
Trump campaign calls 'The Apprentice' 'blatantly false,' director offers to screen it for him
Donald Trump's reelection campaign called 'The Apprentice,' a film about the former U.S. president in the 1980s, 'pure fiction' and vowed legal action following its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. But director Ali Abbasi is offering to privately screen the film for Trump.
Feels like mid-30s in parts of Canada, while other areas expecting snow
Anything is possible this week, as far as Canada's weather is concerned, with forecasts ranging from scorching heat in some parts of the country to rain and snow in others.
Nestle to sell $5 pizza, sandwiches in the U.S. for Wegovy, Ozempic users
Nestle NESN.S will market a new, US$5 line of frozen pizzas and protein-enriched pastas in the United States which it says it designed specifically for people taking drugs such as Wegovy or Ozempic for weight loss.
How much more Canadian consumers are paying, compared to this time last year
Canada's annual inflation rate slowed to a three-year low of 2.7 per cent in April, matching expectations, and core measures continued to ease, data showed on Tuesday, likely boosting chances of a June interest rate cut.
Amal Clooney is one of the legal experts who recommended war crimes charges in Israel-Hamas war
Amal Clooney is one of the legal experts who recommended that the chief prosecutor of the world's top war crimes court seek arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and leaders of the militant Hamas group.
Flight PS752 victims' families say they're not sorry to hear of Iran president death
Members of a Canadian group representing families of those killed when Iranian officials shot down Flight PS752 in January 2020 say they are not sorry to hear of the death of Iran's president.