“You’ve got yourself into a lot of trouble”: Judge tells fentanyl addict to seek help

Dakota Cole's first encounters with the law earned him eight months in prison.

The 31-year-old was sentenced to prison on Tuesday after pleading guilty to nine crimes, two of which involved weapons.

On October 16, 2022, city police encountered Cole when officers responded to a call reporting two people sleeping in a running vehicle on Peoples Road.

They found a woman driving and the accused in the passenger seat, Ontario Court Judge John Condon heard.

The couple was unconscious and the light was on.

A glass pipe with suspected drug residue was on the console and another was on the back seat, said prosecutor Adrianna Mucciarelli.

When the man from the Batchewana First Nation was arrested, police found a firearm in the waistband of his pants.

It was a pistol-style air rifle – “a pistol in itself,” she told Condon.

Cole pleaded guilty to carrying a concealed weapon in connection with the incident.

He was also convicted of obstructing police by giving a false name in another incident the same day.

On January 8 of this year, he was caught running out of a vacant house in the 300 block of Pim Street.

The police were notified because of a break-in in the barricaded house.

The police followed the tracks in the snow leading into the building and caught up with the defendant when someone shouted that a person was coming out of the basement.

“He had something silver in his hand,” said the deputy prosecutor.

Cole had a knife in his right pocket as well as drug paraphernalia and several burglary tools in a backpack.

He pleaded guilty to burglary, which is a criminal offence. He breached an obligation by possessing numerous weapons and instruments suitable for burglary.

The defendant also admitted to missing court dates four times between January 2023 and January of this year.

Mucciarelli and his defense attorney Ken Walker asked for eight months in prison, minus the time Cole spent in custody, followed by two years probation.

The prosecution pointed to the numerous aggravating circumstances, but Cole also has no previous convictions and his pleas indicate remorse.

Walker said there were many Gladue factors in his client's past.

Cole also suffered from an opiate addiction, particularly fentanyl, he told Condon.

When announcing the verdict, the judge said he had taken all these circumstances into account.

“You managed to avoid prison until 2022,” and then you developed a drug problem, the judge told Cole.

“Due to your conduct over the past year and more, imprisonment is necessary.”

Since Cole received an additional day and a half for each day he already spent in prison, he faces an additional 73 days in prison.

While on probation, he must attend all recommended drug addiction evaluations, counseling and rehabilitation programs, which the judge said will “hopefully help him deal with his fentanyl problem.”

Condon also imposed a 10-year gun ban and ordered Cole to provide a DNA sample for the national database.

“For a first-time offender, you've gotten yourself into a lot of trouble, and like many others, you suffer from fentanyl abuse,” he told Cole, urging him to seek counseling.