Drug dealing Windsor biker gets 3 years

Written by Off the Wire
MCs in the News

WIDSOR, Ont. — A Windsor man who in 2004 was one of the first people convicted under anti-gang legislation, pleaded guilty to drug offences Thursday and was sentenced to three more years in prison.

Thomas Blakely Graham, 50, told Superior Court Justice Bruce Thomas he is illiterate and can't make money any other way but selling drugs. "I can't read or write," he said. "I don't have any education. Most of my life has been in prison already."

Thomas urged Graham to alter his path in life.

Graham pleaded guilty to dealing drugs out of the Southwood Hotel. Police, acting on a tip that Graham was selling cocaine out of the Wellington Avenue bar, watched Graham on Nov. 11 in what appeared to be a series of drug transactions. He would meet with people, walk to his pickup truck parked outside, then return to the bar. Police officers with the drugs and guns unit arrested him outside the bar and found him carrying 1.5 grams of cocaine, one OxyContin tablet and $515 in cash.

In his truck, police found 49 Percocet tablets. They got a search warrant for Graham's Prince Road home where they found six grams of cocaine, 225 grams of marijuana, 123 codeine tablets and six OxyContin tablets.

Graham was free on bail at the time from two prior drug raids on his house.

In a plea bargain Thursday, Graham pleaded guilty to four counts of possessing drugs for the purpose of trafficking and one breach of a court order.

Graham is currently serving a six-year prison sentence for 2007 drug charges. On Dec. 22, he was sentenced to prison after police found cocaine, Oxycontin, magic mushrooms, marijuana, ecstasy and Dilaudid in a raid on his home.

Thursday's sentence will extend his prison stay by three years.

Graham, a member of the Outlaws motorcycle gang, has the dubious distinction of being one of the first people in Canada to be convicted of being a member of a criminal organization. That conviction came in 2004 in London.

As an Outlaw, Graham spent nearly all his adult life in prison for drug charges and other offences.

When asked before sentencing if he had anything to say to the court, the portly man raised his heavily tattooed arms and said, "What can I say? Nine years of my life gone again."

Graham has outstanding charges before Ontario court resulting from a 2008 drug raid.

original article