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Windsor student sent to jail for drug trafficking
| quote: | Windsor student sent to jail for drug trafficking
By Sarah Sacheli, The Windsor StarJanuary 26, 2009 |
| quote: | A 22-year-old college student was sentenced Monday to five years in prison for his role in an ecstasy trafficking ring involving conspirators in Windsor, Toronto and Detroit.
Maher Amrou of Windsor tried to have his sentencing delayed, telling the judge between coughing fits that he has bronchitis and is supposed to see his family doctor to get the results of a chest x-ray.
Superior Court Justice Terry Patterson said any such illness “can be dealt with at the county jail” where Amrou will be housed pending transfer to a federal penitentiary.
“You broke the law in a very serious way,” Patterson told the man. The judge, calling the five-year sentence put forward in a joint submission by the Crown and defence “fair,” said he needed to send a message to others who might be enticed to get involved in drug trafficking. “People who get involved in this kind of activity will know that they will go to jail for a very long time. They will go to the penitentiary.”
Amrou, who had no criminal record, was arrested in an RCMP investigation into a Windsor family at the centre of a drug trafficking ring.
Mazin Odish, 32, and younger brother Steven, 21, were the “key targets” of wire taps and surveillance in 2006, federal prosecutor Richard Pollock told the court.
Mazin Odish was making calls from Windsor Jail where he was serving time for drug and weapons offences. Steven was making arrangements on the outside for couriers to get drugs from Toronto contacts to other contacts in Detroit. “Amrou served as one of these couriers,” Pollock said. “The accused was a trusted confidant and organizer on behalf of Main and Steven Odish.”
Amrou took part in three transactions involving more than a dozen people moving $1.32 million worth of ecstasy tablets.
Mazin Odish pleaded guilty to his role in the conspiracy and was sentenced to another 61⁄2 years in prison in addition to the 81⁄2-year sentence he was already serving. Steven Odish was sentenced to 51⁄2 years in a federal penitentiary.
Their parents, mother Suad and father Adil, as well as co-accused Ahmed Habhab and Kemel Hazime, will stand trial in September.
Amrou pleaded guilty to three counts of conspiracy to traffic in ecstasy and two counts of conspiracy to export ecstasy. “I know what I did was very wrong,” Amrou told the judge. Taking issue with some of the facts read into court he said, “ I don’t snitch on people.”
Moments earlier, his lawyer, Daniel Topp, told the court Amrou admitted to the “essential elements” of the crimes.
Amrou’s mother sobbed throughout the proceeding, collapsing outside the courtroom after kissing her son goodbye. Amrou’s father confronted Pollock in the courtroom after the hearing, accusing the prosecutor of punishing a “hardworking, immigrant family.”
Pointing his finger at Pollock and raising his voice he said, “My son is a victim, you know my son is a victim.”
© Copyright (c) The Windsor Star |
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