EX-DRUG DEALER SAYS DEBT TO SOCIETY PAID

A 30-year-old Windsor man who spent three years in a Canadian jail for
selling crack cocaine says he gets panic attacks when he thinks about his
possible extradition to the United States for what his lawyer argues is
essentially the same offence.

"I did the crime back in (1997) and I did my time. Now I'm trying to start
things out on the right path and continue to," Talib Steve Lake said Friday
outside a Windsor court where he appeared for an extradition hearing.

Superior Court Justice Joseph Quinn said he will make two rulings on May
31. First, he will decide if he accepts lawyer Brian McAllister's argument
that the extradition proceeding should be aborted. Lake's charter rights
would be violated by putting him behind bars -- however briefly -- while
awaiting the justice minister's decision on whether he should be
surrendered to U.S. authorities, McAllister argued Friday.

Unless Quinn agrees he must then decide if there's sufficient evidence to
extradite, which would immediately put Lake behind bars. Lake can apply for
release on bail until the minister makes a final ruling.

Department of Justice lawyer Milica Potrebic Piccinato acknowledged that
Lake has grounds to argue his charter rights would be violated by
surrendering him to the United States. But that is an issue for the
minister, not the judge, she said.

Lake sold 106 grams of crack cocaine to an undercover OPP officer for
$6,500 in Detroit on Sept. 22, 1997 in a transaction monitored by FBI
agents, according to court documents. He was later arrested at the
conclusion of a lengthy OPP investigation dubbed Project Cyclone.

He pleaded guilty in 1998 before another Windsor judge to three charges of
trafficking, two of possessing proceeds of crime and one of conspiracy to
traffic. The conspiracy charge was based on the agreement to sell the
undercover officer crack cocaine in Detroit.

The United States is seeking to extradite him for trafficking for the same
transaction. The minimum sentence he would face there if convicted is 10 years.

The two offences are separate and Lake could still have been charged with
trafficking if the sale had taken place here, Potrebic Piccinato said.

But McAllister maintains the sale of the crack cocaine in Detroit was the
only evidence the Canadian court had of the seriousness of the conspiracy,
making it the same offence.

Lake said outside court that since he was released from prison in 2001 he
has been working at factory jobs and attending college. He lives with his
common-law wife and their two children, aged 18 months and three weeks.

He is working as a driver at a local plant and hopes to return to school to
become an architectural engineer, he said.

Lake, who is Canadian, was accompanied to court Friday by his mother,
sister -- both Canadians -- and an uncle, who all live in the Detroit area.