HEAD OF DRUG RING SHOULD GET 15 YEARS, PROSECUTOR SAYS

Dealer Faces Jail for Selling Heroin and Cocaine, Assaulting
Addicts

VANCOUVER - Drug dealer Tony Terezakis should be sentenced to 15 years
in jail for his reign of terror on the "vulnerable" addicts of
Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, Crown prosecutor Peter Hogg told B.C.
Supreme Court Thursday.

Hogg said the 46-year-old criminal should get nine years for pleading
guilty to operating a cocaine and heroin ring out of the American
Hotel and another six years on top of that for brutal assaults on
addicts that were captured on 13 hours of videotape.

A jury found him guilty on several assault charges last week, although
not on the most serious counts of aggravated assault.

Hogg said some of the assaults bordered on torture and were clearly to
teach the victims not to interfere with Terezakis' drug operation in
the seedy hotel on Main Street.

"The accused is capitalizing on the misery of others. He is
capitalizing on the addicts who live in the Downtown Eastside," Hogg
told Justice Heather Holmes at a sentencing hearing. "He exerted
significant control over the people living in the hotel. There is an
aura of oppression and fear."

While Hogg could not say how much Terezakis was making from his drug
enterprise, he told court that "he had no other source of income. It
was his sole occupation."

And Terezakis ruled his turf "by using violence and threats to control
the drug trade," Hogg said.

Terezakis was the first man in B.C. charged under new laws targeting
organized crime, but that charge was thrown out earlier by Holmes, who
ruled it unconstitutional.

But Hogg said the fact that Terezakis' drug group was extremely
organized with couriers, packagers and sellers working 12-hour shifts
in the hotel should be a factor in sentencing.

Hogg said Terezakis' apparent empathy on the tapes with some of the
drug-addicted prostitutes is feigned and should not be taken as a
mitigating factor.

He pleaded guilty to trafficking cocaine and heroin but not guilty to
the videotaped assaults.

Terezakis, who admitted taking over his brother's drug trade in 2001,
has been in custody since the charges were laid in August 2003. He had
several supporters cheering him on in court Thursday, including
relatives, friends and a Salvation Army official.

Terezakis listened intently to the legal arguments and gave the thumbs
up to his supporters, greeting each as they entered the small
courtroom where the hearing took place.

During the two-month trial, prosecutors showed hours of videos
depicting Terezakis beating people and in some cases, also handing
them Bibles. He had argued that he was just acting in the videos,
which were made to help the individuals see how desperate their lives
had become.

Terezakis' lawyer Pamela Smith-Gander said the Crown is exaggerating
Terezakis' role and influence in the drug problems of the Downtown
Eastside.

She said most of his behaviour can be attributed to his own battle
with crack cocaine throughout the period he was making the videos,
which she said were designed to help the addicts who were featured in
them.

"His concern is perhaps misguided but it is to instill values in
people not to lie, not to steal and not to cheat," Smith-Gander said.

"Many treatment centres use the same method. It is called tough
love."

Terezakis tearfully told Holmes that he had learned his lesson, though
he continues to maintain that the videotapes were really just a
reality TV production to educate people about the marginalized
neighbourhood.

She said Terezakis deserves more than the usual two-for-one credit for
the 33 months he has spent in jail awaiting trial because he received
poor medical treatment and was prevented from grieving with his family
when two brothers and a nephew died at different times during his
incarceration.

Holmes reserved her decision to May 10.