DON'T KEEP ME IN JAIL: EX-COP

Wants To Repay Society For Role In Drug Ring By Some Other Means

Former Montreal cop Pierre Goulet is willing to do anything - even
donate blood - to avoid going to jail for getting involved with an
international drug dealing ring.

At his sentencing hearing yesterday, Goulet, who'd been on the force
for 14 years before being suspended upon his arrest in June 2006,
asked to repay society through other means.

"Prison was very difficult," Goulet said of his six weeks behind bars
before being released on bail on Aug. 8, 2006. "I could do community
work, or volunteer somewhere.

"I was a police officer, but I'm also a human being."

Yesterday, crown prosecutor Fabienne Simon asked that Goulet be
sentenced to three years in prison and that his Cadillac be confiscated.

Goulet's lawyer, Gerald Souliere, is to continue his pleading at a future date.

Before lawyers made their pitch, Goulet testified that through his
childhood friend, Bernard Mondue, he inadvertently became involved
with the organized crime ring that dealt in cocaine because he was
"curious and fascinated by the underworld.

"I'm feeling the consequences of that today," said Goulet, who has
also been with the Canadian military as well as the RCMP.

He pleaded guilty in June to two counts of transporting the proceeds
of crime and four counts of possession of proceeds of crime.

The network Goulet worked with smuggled cocaine into Canada from
February 2000 to February 2002 through the border town of St. Bernard
de Lacolle and the states of New York and Florida. He told court
yesterday that he only made $70,000 for his role, which was
transporting and exchanging millions of dollars.

Although he didn't commit his crime while on duty, he did use his
badge to cross the border.

But yesterday, Souliere said there is no way of knowing whether the
badge facilitated his entrance into the U.S.

"Do we sentence someone more severely just because he's a police
officer?" he asked.

Simon recounted the facts in the case, saying that Goulet got
involved after he agreed that Mondue put a safe in the home Goulet
was building. With time, Goulet found himself packaging money
together with Mondue and delivering it across the border.

After one of the members of the drug ring was murdered in February
2004, a Montreal police officer recognized Goulet in a surveillance
video. Two years later, an undercover officer posing as a member of
the network paid Goulet a visit.

Yesterday the defence objected to the tactics used by the state to
nail Goulet, saying it has no right making a person think his life is
in danger.

Goulet told the undercover agent he thought he might be a police
officer and the undercover agent replied: "No, you're a cop."

"Ricardo, I don't want to die," Goulet said, pledging his loyalty to
the network.

The agent then told him that he could sleep soundly and that he
wouldn't be killed.

Goulet is now living with his mother, Claudette Lalande, in St.
Hubert after his divorce in 2002.