COP WHO SOLD SEIZED DRUGS GETS FOUR YEARS

HALIFAX -- A former RCMP officer who sold marijuana seized by
police drug squads is now behind bars with other pushers.

Joseph Daniel Ryan, 33, was sentenced Monday to four years in prison.
The sentence was one year longer than the Crown actually requested.

"Oh, my God," wailed Ryan's pregnant wife, Lilly, as the sentence was
read in Nova Scotia Supreme Court.

Ryan, a former officer at the RCMP detachment in Tantallon, N.S., was
a highly respected constable who was in line to join the prime
minister's security team in Ottawa when he was charged.

"I love you babe," Ryan sobbed as he was escorted out of court as many
of his former colleagues looked on.

Ryan was convicted in June of marijuana trafficking and breach of
trust.

The prison sentence came one month after another blow to the Ryan
family. The couple's six-month-old son suffered a severe brain injury
in a traffic accident that also broke Ryan's ribs.

Throughout the sentencing hearing, the distraught couple grasped each
other's hands and wiped tears from their eyes.

"To my colleagues, to my family ... I am very sorry for everything. I
take responsibility," a crying Ryan said in court.

In a rare step, Justice Ryan Goodfellow rejected both the three-year
Crown recommendation and a two-year conditional sentence sought by the
defence.

"A conditional sentence, in my view, would promote disrespect for the
law," Goodfellow said, adding that Ryan broke the very law he was
sworn to uphold.

"He grossly abused his position of trust."

The judge called Ryan a "dishonest, criminally active police officer."