JUDGE GETS TOUGH WITH POT GROWER

21-Month Term More Than Crown Wanted

Saying the community is fed up with light sentences that do nothing to
curb the "epidemic" proliferation of marijuana grow houses here, a
Windsor judge Monday gave a Woodbridge, Ont., woman a 21-month
sentence, six months more than what the prosecution was seeking.

"I'm very concerned about the public's opinion of the courts,"
Superior Court Justice Gordon Thomson said as he sentenced Thu Thuy
Tran.

Tran, 52, was convicted of possession of a controlled substance for
the purpose of trafficking and theft of electricity in relation to a
grow house in the 5000 block of Colbourne Drive in Windsor.

Tran would drive here from her Toronto-area home to tend to the
operation, which at the time of the police raid in April 2005 involved
316 marijuana plants with a street value of $354,000.

At the start of her hearing Monday, Tran, speaking through a
Vietnamese interpreter, asked Thomson to impose a sentence of house
arrest or probation.

At the end of Thomson's sentence, a weeping Tran was led from the
courtroom in handcuffs to begin serving her time in jail.

Following her jail term, Tran will be on probation for two
years.

Crown prosecutor Richard Pollock said it is not common for judges to
impose harsher sentences than what prosecutors argue for in court.
But, he added, Thomson's sentence "is reflective of a trend set by the
Court of Appeal of jail, real jail, for first offenders."

Pollock had asked Thomson to sentence Tran to 15 months in
jail.

Defence lawyer Daniel Stein had local lawyer Evelyn Lipton appear on
his behalf Monday. Lipton would not comment on the case, deferring to
Stein who could not be reached for comment at his Toronto office.

Stein had asked for leniency since Tran cares for her 80-year-old
mother who has lung cancer and recently suffered a stroke.

He said Tran was a "boat person" who fled Vietnam in 1987 and now
works in a factory.

Thompson acknowledged these mitigating factors, but said there were
aggravating ones as well.

EX-HUSBAND CHARGED

Tran co-owned the Colbourne Drive house with her ex-husband, who is
also charged in connection with the grow-op.

"Her level of complicity was not that of a simple assistant," Thomson
said.

"You did this for profit. Your motives were for pure
greed."

Her ex-husband, with whom she co-owns her principal residence in
Woodbridge, made restitution for the $2,700 worth of damage to the
utility company's equipment by bypassing the hydro meter and the
$6,500 worth of electricity stolen.

While Tran did plead guilty to the charges against her, she did so on
the day her case was scheduled to go to trial, and only after charges
were dropped against her 32-year-old son, Quang Tran, who was arrested
at the house on the day of the raid.

"Grow operations are almost invariably run, usually at arms length, by
criminal organizations," Thomson said. In the case of Tran, he said,
the criminal organization is her own family.

Thomson said crime organizations usually use people with no criminal
records to run the grow houses.

These offenders usually face more lenient sentences if caught and
prosecuted.

This "recurring scenario," said Thomson, "is very bothersome."

And while he said he could have imposed the "short, sharp sentence"
requested by the defence, "to do so would bring the administration of
justice into disrepute."

Thomson said he would recommend that Tran serve her sentence in the
Toronto area so she could be closer to her family.