LOCAL COCAINE CASE GOES TO QUEBEC

Accused Wants To Be Closer To Ailing Wife

MANITOBA Justice has cut an unusual deal with a twice-convicted drug
trafficker that will allow him to move to Montreal, plead guilty to his
latest crime, then serve his sentence in a Quebec prison.

Franco Nucci, 43, wants to go east so he can be closer to his ailing wife,
who plans to return to Quebec to be with her family, court was told yesterday.

Nucci will plead guilty to trafficking one pound of cocaine, which carries
a street value of about $25,000, to an undercover police officer in
February 2001. His trial was to begin yesterday but was cancelled because
he will plead guilty, court was told.

Defence lawyer Stan Nozick said the deal is expected to be finalized in the
next few months -- once he and federal Crown prosecutor Erin Magas get
certified to practise law in Quebec.

"This is rather strange, but it's the deal we've worked out, with the
consent of the Crown in both Quebec and Manitoba," Nozick told the Free
Press. There is still no guarantee Nucci won't be shipped to a prison
elsewhere in Canada, but Nozick said criminals are usually jailed in the
province they plead guilty.

Nozick said yesterday a joint sentencing recommendation will be submitted,
but he wouldn't say how many years Nucci faces behind bars. Nucci and
another man, Abilio DeBraga, were arrested three years after meeting an
undercover RCMP agent in front of De Luca's on Portage Avenue.

The men went to a downtown hotel room, where the agent gave the drug
dealers $25,000 for the pound of cocaine they brought with them and an
additional $25,000 for a pound to be delivered later, court was told.

DeBraga pleaded guilty to conspiracy to traffic cocaine and was sentenced
to 10 years in prison under a joint recommendation.

Nucci remains free on bail pending his sentencing, including a $150,000
surety posted by his father, which will be voided if he breaches any
conditions.

He will appear in court next week seeking a bail variation that will allow
him to move to Montreal, said Nozick.

Nucci is no stranger to the courts. He pleaded guilty in 1998 to conspiring
to traffic cocaine inside Stony Mountain penitentiary. According to the
Crown, Stony Mountain inmates would place calls to outside dealers to order
their drugs. The drugs would be smuggled into the prison in milk cartons by
a garbage collector who worked there. At the time of his arrest, Nucci was
serving a 30-month drug sentence he received in 1996.

In that case, he was arrested during a joint police operation targeting
Winnipeg outlaw motorcycle gang members, their associates and the drug trade.