SENTENCING HELD OVER UNTIL NEW YEAR

The ongoing saga of the Holy Smoke Four continued this week, as the
sentencing of co-accused Alan Middlemiss and Kelsey Stratas was held over
until early in the new year.

Middlemiss and Stratas, two of the four men convicted in September of
trafficking marijuana from The Holy Smoke shop on Baker Street, were
scheduled to be sentenced to jail time yesterday.

But Don Skogstad, lawyer for the men, said he requested to have the
sentencing held over to keep the two men from doing excess time in prison
before they're released to await an appeal.

"Part of the problem is we want to have them released on appeal bail,"
Skogstad said. "But at this time of the year, that's not going to happen
for a couple weeks or more.

"So I asked them to hold it over until January when there will be more
judges available to do the bail hearing."

Skogstad said the two men will already spend about a week in jail as it
is, and to spend more time than that when their sentence could be
overturned on appeal would not be fair.

"If their jail sentence ends up being overturned, that's two weeks they
ought not to have done," he said. "There's always a gap between sentencing
and the time you can get in and do bail, especially in this city."

Were it in a larger place like Vancouver, Skogstad said he could make it
happen in a couple days.

The other co-accused, Paul DeFelice and Akka Annis have already served
some time and been released pending an appeal.

Annis, a first time offender, got 40 days served on weekends in the local
lockup, while DeFelice was sentenced to a precedent-setting year in a
federal prison for his offence in light of a previous marijuana
conviction.

Both Middlemiss and Stratas also have records of marijuana-related
offences and are expected to get sentences similar to the one DeFelice
got.

Their sentencing is set for Jan. 7, 2009 in Nelson Provincial Court.

Skogstad said he expects the appeal hearing to happen around April in the
Provincial Court of Appeals in Vancouver.