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Monday, March 15, 2010

Hells Angel sentenced to 14 months for drug trafficking

OFF THE WIRE
BY: NEAL HALL
Source: vancouversun.com
Canada - ~Hells Angel sentenced to 14 months for drug trafficking~
VANCOUVER - A Hells Angels member was sentenced today to 14 months for trafficking cocaine and producing methamphetamine.
John Punko, 43, was charged in 2005 after a two-year $10-million police investigation code-named Project E-Pandora.
The federal Crown was seeking a 16-year sentence for Punko, who pleaded guilty last Dec. 7 of being involved in a drug lab that made methamphetamine, trafficking five kilograms of cocaine and possessing more than $387,000 as proceeds of crime.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Peter Leask said he would have sentenced Punko to six years in prison if the case had gone to trial, but deducted one year for pleading guilty last year, deducted another year for the "police involvement in creating the crimes," and gave 34 months credit for the time Punko served in custody before sentencing.

The judge found that police used an agent, Michael Plante, who fed Punko's addiction to a prescription painkiller and got Punko involved in methamphetamine production.
"Mr. Punko was a pawn in this investigation," the judge said during his oral reasons, adding police considered Punko a low-level target and hoped he would lead to high-level targets in the East End chapter of the Hells Angels in Vancouver.

Punko was previously convicted of cultivating marijuana, mischief under $5,000, contempt of court for refusing to testify at another Hells Angels trial and for threatening a prosector at a Hells Angels trial.
The judge now is reading his reasons for the sentencing of co-accused Randy Potts, 49, who is also a Hells Angels member.
Potts pleaded guilty last year to being involved in a meth lab with Plante, who worked as a police agent and infiltrated Vancouver's East End chapter of the Hells Angels.
Plante secretly tape recorded conversations between Punko, Potts and a meth lab cook named Ryan Renaud, whom Punko suspected was also working for the UN gang and its boss Clay Roueche.
Last summer, a jury convicted Punko, Potts and two other Hells Angels members, Ronaldo Lising and Jean Violette, of weapons offences and extortion.

In that case, Punko was convicted of the unauthorized possession of a loaded semi-automatic Smith & Wesson pistol and sentenced to 15 months in jail, plus a consecutive sentence of four years for counselling Plante to do damage to a Surrey home, where Punko was trying to collect a large sum of money from a man.

Potts was convicted of four offences: having control of illegal grenades, possessing a loaded Colt .45 semi-automatic pistol, possessing an Intratec 9-mm semi-automatic pistol, a Ruger .22-calibre semi-automatic rifle and Voere bolt-action rifle and a .44 Ruger revolver.
Lising was convicted of possessing two loaded prohibited firearms: a Rossi .357 Magnum revolver and a Walther PPK/S .380-calibre semi-automatic pistol.

Violette was found guilty of the extortion of Glen Louie, a drug dealer who was beaten for using the Hells Angels name without permission. Violette was also convicted of the illegal possession of a loaded Beretta 20 semi-automatic pistol and a Ruger SP 101 revolver.
Earlier Friday, three judges of the B.C. Court of Appeal ordered a new trial for Nima Ghavami and set aside the judicial stay of proceedings of Leask.
Ghavami, who was planning on attending law school, was disappointed by the appeal court ruling.
He is accused of distributing methamphetamine with Plante and Hells Angels members.
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