Crown stays manslaughter charges
Friday, October 14, 2011
Four of the five men - Travis Alphonse Clark, 24, Malcolm Harvey Herman, 22, Trevor Albert Robillard, 30, and Ryan Michael Waddell, 28 - accused in connection with his death took plea bargains in provincial court Thursday. They were sentenced to terms ranging from five to seven years after pleading guilty to attempted robbery in exchange for the Crown staying charges of manslaughter against them.
The fifth man, Preston Spencer Gamble, 28, is scheduled to appear Monday. His lawyer, Darren Winegarden, requested the adjournment after Gamble's mother was unable to attend court Thursday for health reasons.
Mohamud, a member of the Somali community who moved to Saskatoon from Toronto, died after falling from the sixth-floor balcony of an apartment building at 25th Street and Sixth Avenue North on July 20, 2010. All five of the accused were originally charged with robbery and manslaughter, but the four who appeared Thursday pleaded guilty to attempted robbery after maintaining Mohamud jumped from the balcony.
"I'm really sorry to the family of the deceased," said Clark during his sentencing. "That was never supposed to happen."
One of the apartment's tenants, Michael Weston, told police he met Mohamud - who he knew as "Ozzie" - during a drug exchange and agreed Mohamud could deal drugs out of the apartment in exchange for one gram of crack cocaine a day, according to the agreed statement of facts read in court by Crown prosecutor Leslie Dunning.
On July 20, Mohamud buzzed Waddell, a repeat drug customer, into the building. When Weston opened the apartment door, he recognized Waddell, who was with four other men. "These are my bro's," Waddell told Weston before turning and walking away.
Three of the men - Clark, Herman and Robillard - went with Mohamud into the living room, while Gamble backed Weston into the kitchen, demanding Weston give him any drugs he had. Weston said he didn't have anything and Gamble hit him once in the face. Shortly after, the other three men left and Gamble left with them. When Weston went into the living room and looked over the balcony, he saw Mohamud's body on the ground below.
The victim's uncle, Abdigani Farah, travelled from Edmonton to represent the family in court Thursday. He was upset no one was held responsible for his nephew's death.
"Justice was not done for Mohamud," he said outside court. "Instead of speaking up for the victim, they pictured him as an addicted drug dealer."
However, he also expressed relief that at least there were some answers for his family and that the men involved would be serving jail time.
Waddell, who waited in the hallway while the other men tried to rob the people in the apartment, received a sixyear sentence, minus credit for the one year he's served on remand since his arrest last October. Clark, who rummaged through Mohamud's pockets as he lay dead on the ground outside the building but had one of the shortest criminal records of the accused, received a five-year sentence, minus a one-year credit for his time spent on remand. Robillard, Clark's half-brother, received a sevenyear sentence - minus the one-year credit for time on remand - that he will serve concurrently with another sentence he's serving on an unrelated matter.
Herman received six years for the attempted robbery, minus the one-year remand credit.
He also pleaded guilty Thursday to an unrelated assault that occurred in September 2010 against his common-law wife, who suffered serious injuries that resulted in bleeding in her brain. Herman's one-year sentence for aggravated assault will be served consecutively to the six years for robbery, resulting in a total sentence of seven years, minus the one-year credit.
Like the other accused, Herman was "deeply regretful" of his involvement in the incident, said his lawyer Kevin Hill.
In accepting the joint sentence submissions, Judge Barry Singer said he believed the accused - that they didn't intend for Mohamud to die when they visited him that day - but by going there to rob him, "death was a result."