PLEA BARGAIN RESULTS IN SIX MONTHS JAIL

A less than 10-minute guest appearance in a massive drug bust of the
Hells Angels by Winnipeg police and the RCMP has cost a man several
months of his life.

Sam Thorsteinson, 42, was sentenced to three years in prison after
pleading guilty to trafficking 275 grams of cocaine.

He was arrested with 12 others last year as part of the joint police
operation dubbed Project Defense. In accepting a plea bargain, Madam
Justice Brenda Keyser of Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench agreed that
Thorsteinson only has to serve six more months in jail because he had
already spent the equivalent of two and a half years in custody.

Thorsteinson is the ninth person convicted from the police
operation.

Earlier, court was told that while Project Defense investigated
several people for months, Thorsteinson's role was simply agreeing to
courier cocaine from the Hells Angels to an informant working for the
police on one occasion.

The Crown estimated Thorsteinson's offence lasted "less than 10
minutes early in the project and he was never heard of again."

Defence counsel Jay Prober said while Thorsteinson had a past criminal
record, it was more than 10 years old.

"His wife was killed in a motor vehicle accident on Mother's Day, May
12, 1996," Prober said.

"He has a 14-year-old daughter and a 12-year-old daughter from that
marriage. In 2001, five years after his wife and their mother died, he
remarried and he has a three-year-old son from this marriage.

"He was clean and sober for the first 10 years after the death of his
wife... he accepts full responsibility.

"It will not happen again."