Miscommunication between his defence lawyer and the Crown counsel has now landed a drug dealer a harsher house arrest sentence, despite the Crown saying he “should be going to jail for this.”
Huy Anh Lu, 32, first appeared before St. Albert provincial court in early June, where he pleaded guilty to drug trafficking. At the time, court heard that Lu was co-operative with police and had completely removed himself from the drug trade.
The Edmonton resident was arrested in 2013 after selling cocaine and marijuana to an undercover investigator on two occasions. He was sentenced to two years less a day of house arrest but would have been allowed to leave his home the second year during certain hours of the day.
This sentence was changed on Monday after court heard that there had been some miscommunication between his lawyer and the Crown. Lu’s sentence should have been harsher and did not consider the charges for cocaine trafficking, the Crown said.
Instead of sending him to jail, the Crown asked Judge Bruce Garriock to change the original sentence. Lu must now remain under house arrest for two years less a day without a curfew. He must also serve 200 hours of community service and police can search him and his home for drugs and weapons at any time. Judge Garriock agreed to these changes as Lu is not considered to pose any further risk to the community.
When Justin Manning first showed up at the St. Albert RCMP station, he said he may have killed his best friend. On Monday, court heard that wasn’t true and Manning had made up the story because his girlfriend broke up with him and he “wanted to go away for a while.”
Provincial court heard Manning was detained for investigation on May 12, 2014 after he claimed to have stabbed his friend a day earlier. The 20-year-old told the RCMP that the two had been out drinking and then went to play football. Manning said he later stabbed his friend and left him.
The officers got suspicious when Manning could not tell them the last name of his friend. Nonetheless, they spent three days searching for evidence of the crime and trying to identify the friend. When they eventually found him, he was unhurt and said he had not talked to Manning in years. Manning later admitted that he made up the story because he lost his girlfriend, with whom he had a child. He wanted to “go away for a while” because he “lost everything.”
Manning would have been eligible for the alternative measures program but he failed to attend previous court dates. He has been sentenced to 30 days in jail, a fine and six months of probation for sending police on a wild goose-chase which Judge Bruce Garriock called “a fraud of society.”
“The taxpayers expect the police to be available and not deal with flights of fancy,” he said.
