Lois Anne-Marie MacVey, 57, on Monday to 18 months in a provincial jail for trafficking cocaine.
MacVey is the latest person to be sentenced from the more than two dozen arrested in January 2006 after a multi-police agency investigation into the Hells Angels called Project Husky.
The Crown had asked for a federal penitentiary term of three to five years, while the defence called for a conditional sentence to be served in the community.
MacVey pleaded guilty in February 2007 to three counts of trafficking cocaine.
Pelletier said even if she found MacVey poses no risk to the community, she‘s not satisfied that a conditional sentence – akin to house arrest – would meet the sentencing principals of deterrence and denunciation.
And when trafficking large amounts of cocaine with a high level of commerciality is involved, deterring and denouncing the crime is paramount, she said.
Conditional sentences for trafficking are for those individuals who are selling small amounts at the street level, she continued. In the police investigation, a police agent infiltrated the Thunder Bay chapter of the Hells Angels.
In July and August 2005, MacVey was caught three times on video and audio tapes delivering cocaine to the agent at his home.
Each time, she delivered about one pound of cocaine, or 445 grams.
The agent paid the wholesale price of $20,000 per pound, and the entire amount of more than one kilogram would be worth $100,000 to $130,000 if sold through street-level trafficking.
At an earlier appearance, defence lawyer Lee Baig told the court that MacVey delivered the drugs in order to pay off a debt to Julien Alphonse Roussel, a full-patch member of the Thunder Bay Hells Angels.
She didn‘t have the money to pay her debt, so acted as a courier instead, court was told
MacVey previously had a relationship with Roussel, who is the father of one of her six children.
Roussel is serving a six-year term in a federal prison for various drug crimes, including trafficking.
MacVey acted as a courier, considered the bottom of the drug trafficking ladder, but still an important aspect of the trade, Pelletier said.
There was no evidence MacVey handled cash or had any significant personal benefit.
Aging and ill, she‘s considered a first-time offender.
But her trafficking was done for an organized crime group, and MacVey knew it and was familiar with the club, the judge continued.
Pelletier pointed to a section of the pre-sentence report in which MacVey acknowledged associating with known Hells Angels.
Pelletier said she does not accept MacVey was acting in desperation to repay a loan.
“This is not an isolated single transaction,” said Pelletier.
MacVey was ordered to provide a DNA sample for the national databank, and was given a 10-year weapons prohibition.