FORMER OLYMPIAN SENTENCED TO FOUR YEARS IN U.S. PRISON

Coquitlam Snowboarder Convicted of Cocaine Smuggling

Former Olympic snowboarder Ryan Wedding missed the 2010 Winter Games
in his hometown this past February.

And now the convicted cocaine smuggler will miss the 2014 Olympics in
Sochi, Russia after being handed a four-year prison term in a San
Diego courtroom Thursday.

It could have been worse.

Wedding's conviction last December of conspiring to distribute 24
kilograms of cocaine usually carries a 10-year mandatory minimum.

Wedding has been held in custody for two years already.

U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey T. Miller gave the Coquitlam man 48
months in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons, as well as three years
supervised release.

Two co-accused in the case who pleaded guilty last year, Vancouver
businessman Michael Krapchan and North Van gang associate Hassan
Shirani, received lesser sentences in the cocaine smuggling conspiracy.

Wedding placed 24th in his event at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games, but
has not participated internationally since then.

Wedding was arrested in June 2008 after a sting in which U.S. agents
and an informant purported to be drug traffickers willing to sell 24
kilos of cocaine to the Canadian group.

The arrests were made after a single kilo was exchanged for
cash.

Wedding had been earlier named in a Canadian search warrant as being
linked to a house where police found a marijuana growing operation.

But he was never charged and had no previous record on this side of
the border.

He filed an appeal of the jury verdict in February, which is still
outstanding.

Since then, all the new filings in the case by Assistant U.S. Attorney
Orlando Gutierrez have been under seal.

Wedding argued in his appeal documents that the Canadians completed
the sale of only one kilo of cocaine and shouldn't be found guilty of
the broader conspiracy.

Wedding was nabbed June 13, 2008, three days after he arrived in Los
Angeles from Vancouver with Krapchan and Shirani.

The U. S . Attorney led evidence that all three B.C. men worked for
Elmar Akhundov, "the leader of the Akhundov drug-trafficking
organization based in Vancouver and under investigation in California
for money laundering and drug trafficking."

The government had taped conversations of Wedding in which he appeared
to be a willing participant in the scheme to purchase cocaine to
transport back to B.C.