Pubdate: Wed, 09 Jun 2004 Source: Windsor Star (CN ON) Copyright: The Windsor Star 2004 Contact: http://www.canada.com/windsor/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/501 Author: Sarah Sacheli, Windsor Star Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine) DRUG COURIER GETS FIVE YEARS A Leamington trucker who admitted smuggling drugs across the border on a regular basis was sentenced Monday to five years in a federal penitentiary. Charles Stuart Koop, 34, was caught March 22, 2003, with 10 kg of cocaine and seven kg of marijuana in his truck. He had been hauling a load of lettuce and melons to Toronto from Florida when he was pulled over at Canada Customs for secondary inspection. Officers found the cocaine, valued at more than $1 million, wrapped in one-kg packages in a duffel bag. The marijuana, with a street value of $700,000, was in one-kg packages in two black garbage bags. Koop pleaded guilty to two charges of importing narcotics. The guilty plea was one of the mitigating factors Supreme Court Justice Dougald McDermid considered in sentencing. McDermid accepted the joint submission by Koop's lawyer and the federal prosecutor that the trucker serve five years, despite other cases in which cocaine importers were sentenced to penitentiary terms of six to eight years for their first convictions. Koop co-operated with police, McDermid noted. Koop told police he thought he was importing marijuana, not cocaine, when he was arrested. McDermid said Koop, nonetheless, "knew he was importing a narcotic." McDermid noted Koop admitted making one or two smuggling trips each month since 2002, being paid $40 for each pound of marijuana he imported. He had smuggled drugs across the border before that "from time to time" making $2,000 per trip until he lost his licence for drunk driving in 1999. Once he got his licence back, he resumed being a drug courier. Defence lawyer Ken Marley said Koop has "intellectual and emotional limitations." He was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder in Grade 8 and dropped out of high school at the age of 16. He is single and lives at home with his parents. During a recess Monday before the judge returned his verdict, Koop sobbed in his mother's arms at the back of the courtroom. "Drug traffickers have exploited the simplistic nature of my client," Marley told the judge. Federal prosecutor Ed Posliff agreed with the sentence, explaining to the judge that the police would not have known of Koop's history as a drug courier if not for his co-operation. Punishing him for that admission "could discourage that kind of co-operation in the future," Posliff said. - --- MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager