CROWN WANTS MAN JAILED FOR CONSPIRACY TO GROW MARIJUANA

The Crown has asked for a sentence of between 18 and 30 months in jail for
a former Nanaimo man found guilty earlier this year of conspiracy to grow
marijuana.

Lyle Marshall Jardine, 45, was convicted in April after a trial of several
weeks in B.C. Supreme Court by judge alone.

Jardine now lives in Grande Prairie, Alta. He will be sentenced June 25.

Friday Crown counsel Ted Beaubier reviewed the facts of the case, in which
police connected Jardine to organizing eight growing operations in the
Nanaimo area.

He was not convicted of being behind all eight.

Beaubier said the evidence was "overwhelming" that Jardine was at the
centre of the conspiracy.

It is estimated by police the maximum yield of all eight operations would
have been about $1.4 million a year.

While the others named with Jardine were unindicted co-conspirators, they
were charged with possessing pot for the purpose of trafficking and
cultivating the drug. All have been dealt with by the courts.

Beaubier cited two outstanding findings of a pre-sentence report prepared
on Jardine.

The first was that while on bail for the conspiracy charge in Nanaimo,
Jardine was arrested for dealing cocaine in Alberta.

He has pleaded guilty on that charge and has yet to return to Alberta to be
sentenced.

Defence lawyer Victor Svacek said the only appropriate penalty was a
conditional sentence. Svacek said Jardine was anything but a major player
in the drug world, and ended up being a "convenient vehicle" of others in
the operation who wanted to avoid conviction.

He said Jardine's circumstances, including a Grade 7 education and
functional illiteracy, made him vulnerable to the crime as he was drawn to
what he considered easy money. Svacek also argued that the drift of the
current law is away from jail sentences for crimes involving marijuana.

Given the chance to comment, Jardine rambled for several minutes. He
apologized and gave the background to problems with his family, work,
finances and health.

"I guarantee it will never, never happen again," he said.