BIKER'S SENTENCE JUMPS TO FIVE YEARS

Co-Accused in Drug Case Also Had Sentence Increased by Appeal Court

The B.C. Court of Appeal has quadrupled the jail sentence for a Hells
Angel who pleaded guilty to trafficking in large quantities of cocaine
and methamphetamines.

In December 2009, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Peter Leask gave Randy
Potts, a member of the notorious motorcycle gang's East End chapter, a
one-year sentence.

On Friday, a three-member panel of the appeal court allowed the
federal prosecutor's appeal of the sentence and increased Potts' jail
time to five years, reduced to four years after giving credit for
pre-sentence custody.

In her reasons for judgment, B.C. Court of Appeal Justice Anne Rowles
found that Leask had made a number of errors resulting in an unfit
sentence for Potts.

The judge said Leask failed to apply the fundamental principle in
sentencing, that a sentence must be proportionate to the gravity of
the offence and the degree of responsibility of the offender.

Rowles said Potts could not be described as being at the high end of
the drug-trafficking hierarchy, but his crimes were nonetheless very
serious.

Recognition of the seriousness of the meth conspiracy seemed to have
been lost by Leask's adoption of the characterization of Potts as a
"low-end mope," she ruled.

"The description does not fit the magnitude of Potts' criminal
misconduct. . . . A conspiracy such as this one is a despicable
endeavour which causes very substantial harm within society."

A second error was related to Leask's handling of mitigating factors
on sentencing, said Rowles.

His recognition of the mitigating factors in stepped, successive
stages resulted in their overshadowing the important goals of
denunciation and deterrence, she said.

"In combination, the two errors to which I have referred resulted in
an unfit sentence."

Potts, who has been on bail, will now have to turn himself in to serve
out his time.

In September, the appeal court allowed the prosecution's appeal of
Leask's sentencing of John Punko, Potts' co-accused. Punko, who had
received a 14-month jail term from Leask, saw his jail time increase
to five years, two months by the appeal court, which found the trial
judge had made a number of errors.

Court heard that Potts was an "investor" in a scheme to manufacture
and distribute meth, providing $14,000 in cash and 16 kilograms of the
precursor drug ephedrine in order to produce eight kilos of meth. He
received $231,500 in return. For trafficking 850 grams of cocaine, he
received $32,800.

Both Potts and Punko had pleaded guilty after Leask dismissed the more
serious charge that they had committed their crimes on behalf of or in
association with a criminal organization.

That ruling is also being appealed by the federal prosecutor.

In addition to the drug convictions, Potts and Punko were earlier
found guilty of various weapons-related offences. A jury hearing the
weapons case found them not guilty of committing the offences for a
criminal organization. The pair were arrested in July 2005 as part of
the RCMP's Project E-Pandora crackdown on the East End chapter of the
Hells Angels.