Woman with 'tragic' background avoids jail after undercover drug bust

A judge refused Monday to imprison a middle-aged woman with a "tragic" background for selling a small amount of narcotics to an undercover cop.

"I think jail is the last place you belong right now," Ontario Court Justice Robert Villeneuve told Dolarisa Bushey.

"You need to get help or you won't be in this life much longer," he said when he suspended sentence and placed the 55-year-old woman on probation for three years.

Bushey pleaded guilty to two counts of trafficking for selling Hydromorph Contin and morphine capsules, with a total value of  $170, to a police officer on July 7 and 8, 2014.

Federal Crown prosecutor Joe Chapman called for a six-to-nine month jail term, arguing "It's not about this offender."

The real issue here is sending a message to Bushey, the community of Sault Ste. Marie and Ontario, he said.

"Small little pills that contain opioids can kill people and they do," the Manitoulin Island prosecutor said.

"The only way we can stem deaths from opioids is to send people that treat opioids as party favors or candy to jail."

Chapman said it's not about the value of these drugs because any of them could have caused death and to diminish that fact would be an injustice.

Defence counsel Ken Walker said Bushey, who has had a hard life and is "in pretty bad straits," has a plethora of problems

His client suffers from serious medical issues and has a drug problem, he said.

Bushey, who is originally from Michipicoten First Nation, had an "upbringing that is something not wished upon anyone," he said, describing poverty, alcoholism and abuse.

"The situation deteriorated to the effect that she had her first run in with the law at 12" and at age 15 she was abused while in a training school, Walker told the court.

Her husband was abusive and a drinker, her boyfriend was murdered in Sudbury a number of years ago, and her apartment burned down in May leaving her homeless, he said.

After police found her living in an alley she suffered a nervous breakdown.

"She's living a life that's precarious," Walker said. "She's really got a lot of problems and wants to go to treatment."

Bushey's criminal record has "a complete lack of drug charges," he said, noting her last criminal code conviction was in 2007.

Walker called his client's drug sales "nothing deals, the smallest of the small."

Since a conditional sentence, which would be served in the community, isn't available for these charges, he said "I have the temerity to ask for a suspended sentence" and "let's give her three years probation (the maximum under the Criminal Code of Canada)."

When the judge wondered why a conditional sentence wasn't available, Chapman told Villeneuve the federal government eliminated it for schedule one drug offences under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, along with some criminal code offences, in 2012.

"Do you realize how serious these offences are, selling these pills?" Villeneuve asked the woman.

"Yes," she replied.

"Do you know people die from taking these pills?"

"No" was Bushey's response.

"People die, they do," Villeneneuve said. "You don't know who you are selling to and what they'll do with it."

Calling Bushey's situation tragic and depressing, he said anybody who is going to be critical of his sentence would not be critical if they read her pre-sentence report.

"You present far older than you are," he told the tiny woman. "It is a testament to the life you have lead."

During her probation, Bushey must undergo assessment and counselling for substance abuse, bereavement and grief issues, life skills and any other counselling deemed apropriate.

She must attend a methadone program and the Rainbow Lodge treatment facility if available.

As well, she must provide a DNA sample for the national registry and is prohibited from possessing firearms for 10 years.