Cocaine trafficking | A sentence reduced by six months due to difficult detention conditions

A drug trafficker sentenced to five years on Monday, and who was due to have 12 months left to serve excluding preventive detention, saw his sentence reduced by an additional six months, due to his difficult detention conditions.

Jonathan Papillon, 29, was arrested on June 9, 2021 and has been in custody since. On December 12, he pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy and cocaine trafficking, and the Prosecution and the Defense then announced to Judge Jean-Jacques Gagné of the Court of Quebec that they had agreed on a sentence. total of five years to be pronounced on January 29.

For more than ten years, the law has provided that the time spent in preventive detention (before sentencing) can be calculated in time and a half rather than in simple time, if the circumstances justify it.

For several years, this provision has been systematically used in Quebec, in particular because of the more difficult conditions of detention in provincial prisons compared to federal penitentiaries.

However, on Monday morning, the two parties asked Judge Gagné to pronounce a remainder of six months from that day, rather than 12 months, “due to difficult detention conditions,” said the prosecution prosecutor. ,M^e Laurence Lavoie.

At the sentencing stage, the parties put forward their arguments and the magistrate can endorse them, if he considers them reasonable. This is what Judge Gagné did.

M^e Lavoie did not explain what she meant by “difficult,” but sources told The Press that Jonathan Papillon was allegedly attacked in prison last December.

The convict, who appeared by videoconference from the prison where he is, appeared to be doing well.

He did not want to speak when Judge Gagné gave him the opportunity.

The plea of ​​Papillon and his accomplices made it possible to avoid holding a trial which was to last eight weeks.

“Significant judicial resources could be used for other purposes,” declared Judge Gagné.

More than 10 kg per week

The investigation, called Renouveau and led by investigators from the Organized Crime Division (DCO) of the Montreal City Police Service (SPVM), targeted a group of individuals who trafficked cocaine in Plateau-Mont- Royal, in Montreal.

In addition, the suspects supplied kilograms of cocaine to other criminal organizations in the metropolitan region and eastern Quebec.

According to our information, the dismantled organization would have been able to transact between 10 and 20 kg of cocaine per week.

In a press release, the SPVM indicated that it had seized 20 kg of cocaine worth $1.4 million on the black market, 218,000 methamphetamine tablets, various quantities of Xanax, mescaline and other narcotics, two firearms , an electric pulse gun, brass knuckles, ammunition of different calibers, bulletproof jackets and nearly $800,000 in cash.

The police suspect Jean-Guy Bourgouin, former member of the Rockers, the late Hells Angels school club very active during the biker war (1994-2002), of having led this network even if he was not accused in as part of the Renouveau survey.

To contact Daniel Renaud, call 514 285-7000, extension 4918, write to [email protected] or write to the postal address of La Presse.