Crown wants 8-10 years for trafficker who had 3.7 kg of meth

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A man set to be sentenced next week for possessing large quantities of hard drugs told a judge on Monday that he regrets his actions because he let down his family.

“The last couple of years have been the hardest of my life, struggling mentally and emotionally,” said Cole Alexander McFadden, reading a letter to the court from the prisoner’s box in the Court of King’s Bench.

McFadden said he has an “amazing” girlfriend and two children and has missed much of their lives since he was arrested on the charges in January 2022. He apologized to the court, the community and his family for what he’s done.

“They deserve better and I will be better. Thank you,” he said before taking his seat.

McFadden, 32, and Christina Ida Blacklock, 32, were both in the Court of King’s Bench in Moncton for the start of the trial on Jan. 15, with Justice Ivan Robichaud presiding over the case. McFadden instead pleaded guilty to possessing methamphetamine for the purpose of trafficking.

On Monday, prosecutor Bernard Roux withdrew trafficking charges against Blacklock – ending her court matter – and illegal firearms possession charges against McFadden.

Roux asked the court to impose eight to 10 years in prison in this case, calling the offender a “high-level trafficker.”

“These are serious drugs, they’re a problem in this community and a problem in New Brunswick,” said the prosecutor.

Defence lawyer Alex Pate asked for between four and five years, saying the Crown’s recommended sentence is too high and isn’t supported by case law. Pate said his client was addicted to crystal meth by age 16, which led him down a path that had him sentenced to a lengthy prison term for manslaughter before he was 20.

But Pate said McFadden has family support, has finished his high school education while incarcerated and took full responsibility for the drugs found in his home.

“What the Crown is asking for here is very high,” he said.

Roux read the facts of the offence into the record on Jan. 15. He said police executed a search warrant at a home on Chemin Poucette in Saint-Andre-LeBlanc, about 50 kilometres east of Moncton, in mid-January 2022. Roux said McFadden and Blacklock were living together in the home, along with children.

During the search police seized 3.7 kilograms of crystal meth. One package was found in an opening in the couch while the other three were in the kitchen.

The prosecutor said police found scales, a money counter, packaged cannabis and 560 pills that were later determined to be steroids.

Roux said a shotgun, rifle and loaded rifle magazine were found between the mattress and box spring in what appeared to be a child’s bedroom, though there was no evidence there was a child sleeping there at the time.

Robichaud said while McFadden has not pleaded guilty to gun charges, he will consider whether or not the presence of guns in a home with children living there is an aggravating factor for sentencing. He will impose sentence on April 22.

The RCMP said in a news release at the time that they had made an arrest in the late-December 2021 homicide of a Petit-Cap man. Police said McFadden was arrested at a business on High Street in Moncton on Jan. 18 in relation to the homicide of 55-year-old Nicholas Trenholm.

But in the two years since his arrest, McFadden has not been charged with anything relating to Trenholm’s death. Police said, following the arrest, they executed the search warrant at the home in St-Andre-LeBlanc.

The manslaughter conviction on McFadden’s record dates back to the late 2000s. He was 19 when he was sentenced to 11 years on Nov. 25, 2009, in the shooting death of Layne McDonald during a March 2009 home invasion in Shediac. It was the second violent home invasion committed by McFadden and four others that night, after an earlier one in Moncton left two brothers badly injured.

McFadden was not the gunman, but entered the home and attacked McDonald and his father during a robbery. All five pleaded guilty and were sentenced to lengthy penitentiary terms.