TOP COURT TURFS SOFT DRUG TERM

Placing a high school dealer nabbed with a cache of drugs and weapons
under house arrest was wrong, the province's top court ruled
yesterday. In a split decision, a three-member Alberta Court of Appeal
panel said Wesley Jason Wong should have been sentenced to 30 months
in a federal prison.

Justice Connie Hunt, in granting the Crown's appeal, said Queen's
Bench Justice Marsha Erb erred in handing Wong a conditional sentence.

"The sentence was unfit," Hunt said. "It is well known that the drug
trade is violent, the presence of several weapons is troubling," she
said. "A provincial sentence (which would permit house arrest) was
inappropriate."

Wong, then 18, was arrested after a Oct. 2, 2002 raid on his mother's
northwest home netted crack and powder cocaine and ecstasy pills.

Police also found more than $10,000, and weapons, including a 9-mm
handgun.

At Wong's sentencing in March, Crown prosecutor Bob Sigurdson asked
for a sentence of up to three years noting the high-schooler was
dealing simply for profit.

But Erb agreed with defence lawyer Jim Ogle that despite the
commercial nature of Wong's endeavour, his age and attempts at
rehabilitation called for a conditional sentence.

Because Wong has already served some of his community term, Hunt
ordered him to serve a two-year jail sentence.