City drug dealer sentenced to prison
By Shurtz, Delon on August 27, 2020.
Delon Shurtz
lethbridge herald
A Lethbridge man once considered one of the city’s biggest drug dealers has been sent to prison.
Daud Abdul Kadir Mohamed was sentenced Wednesday in Lethbridge Court of Queen’s Bench to three years in a federal penitentiary.
The sentencing comes four months after Mohamed pleaded guilty to one charge each of drug possession for the purpose of trafficking and possession of the proceeds of crime over $5,000.
Mohamed was charged following a police investigation that began in November 2016 after police received information Mohamed was selling cocaine and fentanyl, and that he was the “main” dealer for fentanyl in Lethbridge.
Police watched Mohamed for eight days between Nov. 8 and Dec. 1, 2016 and saw him “engaging in activity consistent with what police believed to be drug trafficking,” Crown Prosecutor Mark Klassen said during a hearing in April.
Mohamed drove to various sites where he was seen conducting “hand-to-hand transactions with numerous people,” and he conducted transactions at homes in Lethbridge and Coalhurst, neither of which he was the owner or tenant.
Police arrested Mohamed Dec. 1 as he was leaving the Lethbridge residence with four Baggies containing a total of 200 fentanyl pills. He also had the keys to the Lethbridge and Coalhurst residences. Police searched the Lethbridge home on Mt. Blakiston Road West and found another 72 fentanyl pills, $6,975 in cash and three cellphones.
Klassen and Lethbridge lawyer Bjoern Wolkmann jointly recommended the three-year sentence, which, they admitted, was on the low side but took into consideration Mohamed’s guilty plea and the general reduction in the length of sentences that are granted because of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Klassen said without those considerations – and the fact Mohamed does not have previous convictions for trafficking – he would have recommended a sentence between four and four and a half years in prison.
Wolkmann pointed out there was “significant quid quo pro,” that resulted in the guilty pleas and subsequent sentencing recommendation, and said his client finally understands the impact drug trafficking and drug addiction have on a community.
“He is apologetic … he is contrite,” Wolkmann said.
Although Justice Dallas Miller suggested a three-year sentence was on the “lighter side of the scale,” he accepted the joint submission. He stressed, however, the three-year-sentence is not a COVID pandemic discount, and gave considerable weight to the guilty plea, which made a week-long trial no longer necessary.
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