Point Douglas drug queen pleads guilty

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This article was published 30/09/2023 (755 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The reputed leader of an inner-city drug ring whose arrest netted the seizure of more than $2.3 million worth of drugs and property pleaded guilty Thursday to a single count of conspiracy to traffic in cocaine.

Sandra Guiboche, 59, was the primary target of a lengthy police investigation dubbed Project Matriarch and is alleged to have been dealing drugs in the Point Douglas area for 25 years.

Guiboche, accompanied by a woman identified as her niece, arrived at court in a wheelchair, then used her feet to make her way to the counsel table.

Court heard much of the evidence against Guiboche comes from extensive wiretap recordings, transcripts of which were included in a near metre-high high pile of bound documents visible in court.

“You are accepting the fact that on those audiotapes that you have now heard, that is you?” defence lawyer Saul Simmonds asked Guiboche in a series of questions meant to ensure her guilty plea was informed and voluntary.

“And you understand that the Crown is taking the view … that you were instrumental in giving instruction to many people with respect to the conspiracy to traffic in drugs?”

She responded with a yes to both questions.

Simmonds told King’s Bench Justice Ken Champagne he expected a sentencing date to be set for the spring, following the completion of a Gladue report detailing her Indigenous background and personal history, as well as “psychological and physical” reports “that will address some of the issues the court can see already.”

Prosecutors are expected to recommend a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.

“Obviously, given the nature of the facts, this is a serious matter and one way or another our expectation is the court… will undoubtedly impose a penitentiary term,” Simmonds said.

Guiboche was among 14 people hit with more than 100 criminal charges following their arrests in April 2021.

Investigators seized cocaine, crack cocaine, a loaded firearm and ammunition, jewelry, a 2016 BMW X5 and a skid-steer vehicle.

Criminal forfeitures were filed for 10 properties in Point Douglas and at least nine bank accounts, all of them owned by Guiboche, police said at the time.

In a sworn affidavit, provincial property forfeiture officials allege Guiboche had been selling drugs in Point Douglas for 25 years and was known for selling pink-coloured crack cocaine — a sort of branding for her product.

The affidavit alleges Guiboche maintained the properties as rental units, with street-level dealers among the tenants.

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Last September, co-accused crack cook Timothy Verbong, 62, was sentenced to eight years in prison for his role in the drug network.

Court heard Verbong lived in a house Guiboche owned on the 100 block of Lisgar Avenue, where he cooked cocaine into crack and readied it for sale.

Police kept watch on the house and during one day in January 2021 saw 239 people visit the “24-7 crack shack,” Crown attorney Raegan Rankin told court at Verbong’s sentencing.

“The only reason to go there is to purchase crack cocaine,” Rankin told provincial court Judge Catherine Carlson. “That is why it was set up, that’s what it was designed for, and that’s what people who were in there were doing.”

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca

Dean Pritchard
Courts reporter

Dean Pritchard is courts reporter for the Free Press. He has covered the justice system since 1999, working for the Brandon Sun and Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in 2019. Read more about Dean.

Every piece of reporting Dean produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.