CANADIAN TO SERVE TIME IN U.S. JAIL FOR SMUGGLING POT

A 35-year-old Canadian man was sentenced on Thursday to 30 months in a
North Dakota jail for smuggling about 85 kilograms of marijuana into
North Dakota last August.

"He said he was not a bad person, that he made a bad judgment and that
he was sorry for getting involved in drugs," United States Assistant
Attorney Scott Schneider said of the sentencing hearing for Joseph
Dominic Marcel Maltais.

Maltais' main address is in Kamloops, B.C., but when he was caught, he
had a Manitoba driver's licence with a Neepawa address.

"He asked that he serve his time as close to Canada as he could so his
family could visit him," Schneider added.

Maltais pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute
marijuana at a court hearing at U.S. District Court in Bismarck, N.D.,
on Jan. 13, but his sentencing before Chief Judge Daniel Hovland was
put over for a pre-sentence report to be done.

Schneider said Maltais faced up to four years in prison but did not
have a criminal record and got a mid-range sentence. He also got a
credit for the eight months he's spent in custody. Following his
release from prison, Maltais will be placed on three years supervised
release. He must also pay $100 to a crime-victim's fund.

Maltais has been in custody since being arrested Aug. 8 in one of the
largest marijuana busts seen in North Dakota.

Police found an estimated 70 kilograms of high-grade marijuana stuffed
in hockey bags in a 1993 Dodge pickup truck and trailer. It was
spotted by a border-patrol officer parked on a farm road about 450
metres inside the U.S. border near the Westhope crossing, which is
south of Melita, Man.