DRUG DEALER GETS 15 YEARS IN PRISON

EDMONTON - A former nightclub owner convicted in Alberta's largest cocaine
bust was sentenced Wednesday to 15 years in prison.

Court of Queen's Bench Justice Donna Read said Barry Werkman's sentence is
a warning to other potential drug traffickers. He had no previous record.

Werkman, 38, was convicted last Friday of conspiracy to import cocaine,
importing cocaine and exporting large amounts of marijuana.

His year-long drug smuggling efforts unravelled on Jan. 15, 2004, when a
drug-detection dog led a suspicious customs agent at the Coutts Canada-U.S.
border crossing to 69 kilograms of cocaine stashed between the floor and
subfloor of a tractor trailer rented by Werkman.

The shipment was the single largest cocaine seizure in Alberta and was
valued at $9 million, but it was only the last in a series of shipments by
Werkman, a married father of two young children.

In all, he had transported more than $25 million of the drug on three
different trips. Each trip started with a truck going to British Columbia,
picking up large shipments of marijuana, then heading south to the United
States where the marijuana was unloaded and large amounts of cocaine were
loaded.

The excuse given at the border crossing for each trip was to pick up a car
in Las Vegas or Los Angeles and bring it across the border.

Two acquaintances of Werkman, Michael Hills and Wade Overacker, did the
trucking for $3,500 each per trip, plus expenses.

After pleading guilty last year to an importing charge, Overacker, 31, was
sentenced to eight years in prison. If he had fought the charge and been
found guilty, it's likely he would have been given a longer sentence, Read
said in explaining why Werkman received 15 years after pleading not guilty
to the charges.

Throughout Canada, judges have urged that everything must be done to
discourage others from importing and distributing cocaine, Read said. Under
Canadian law those examples must set the standard. Citing more lengthy
prison sentences doled out to other Canadian drug lords and the maximum
allowable term of life in prison, Crown prosecutor Dennis Hrabcak had asked
for a sentence of 18 to 22 years.

That wouldn't be appropriate, Read said. Werkman was no drug lord. His
position in the hierarchy of people behind the importation scheme was a
relatively low one.

"Mr. Werkman was not the linchpin," said Read. "I agree with the defence
that he was toward the bottom of the hierarchy. I do not accept the Crown's
submission that he was toward the top. He answered to a number of 'someone
elses.'

"Mr. Werkman was not gaining the profits," said Read, referring to the
$22,000 he earned for one 100-kilogram shipment.

"The Japanese would say he was a 'salaryman.' "

Despite her intention to make an example of Werkman, Read showed some mercy
when asked by defence lawyer Paul Moreau to recommend that he be
incarcerated in Bowden Institution so his family can visit.

Read said she would make the recommendation to Corrections Canada.