Pubdate: Tue, 26 Aug 2014
Source: Edmonton Sun (CN AB)
Page: 7
Copyright: 2014 Canoe Limited Partnership.
Contact: http://www.edmontonsun.com/letter-to-editor
Website: http://www.edmontonsun.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/135
Author: Tony Blais

REMAND GUARD SAYS HE SMUGGLED DRUGS AFTER INMATE THREATS

An Edmonton Remand Centre guard who smuggled drugs for inmates is
claiming he did it because he was threatened by a big-time drug dealer
tied to the Hells Angels.

Testifying Monday at his Court of Queen's Bench sentencing hearing,
James Johnstone said his ordeal began when he was doing a security
check in Jeffrey Caines' cell and the inmate blocked the door and told
him he knew his address and phone number and his mother's address.

Johnstone said the large and muscular convicted cocaine kingpin then
told him that if he didn't bring in a package for him, someone would
be "paying my mom and I a visit."

Johnstone, 24, told court he didn't report the threat because he was
"scared" and in a "state of panic" and had had some negative issues
with his supervisors.

Then, when he got a text from an unknown person telling him where to
go to pick up the package, he said the threats became "more real" and
he did what he was told.

"I was afraid that Caines, knowing his affiliation with the Hells
Angels and his violent temper, would do something to follow through on
what he had said. I was thinking he would kill," said Johnstone. "I
was feeling just petrified and trapped and I felt like I had no one to
turn to."

Johnstone, who turns 25 on Saturday, has pleaded guilty to trafficking
in a controlled substance.

According to agreed facts, Johnstone was employed as an ERC guard
between January 2009 and April 2011.

During an investigation known as Project Gracchus involving Johnstone,
Caines and other ERC inmates, it was evident from phone conversations
that Johnstone twice brought packages containing drugs into the
facility and at one time charged $1,000 as a fee for this service.

In the first instance, Johnstone smuggled in a package he was given
containing an unknown quantity of drugs sometime between Oct. 11 and
Oct. 14, 2010.

The second time involved a package containing five half-pound bags of
marijuana and an unknown amount of hashish being delivered between
Oct. 25 and Oct. 31, 2010.

After Johnstone was arrested, a search was done of his 2003 Honda CRV
and police found under the front seat a package containing four
lighters, four packs of Zig Zag rolling papers, pouches of tobacco, 85
grams of marijuana and eight spitballs of cocaine weighing 2.2 grams.

During Johnstone's arrest interview in April 2011, he admitted he
brought four packages into the ERC for inmates over a period of one
year prior to his arrest.

The Crown is seeking a prison term of five to six years while the
defence is looking for less based on Johnstone being psychologically
and emotionally fragile at the time.

Caines, 40, was handed a 14-year prison term on Oct. 7, 2011, after
admitting he was the head of a multi-kilo cocaine trafficking
operation in Fort McMurray.

Court has heard Caines paid the Hells Angels a fee so the outlaw
bikers would provide protection for his people.  
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jo-D