Last Rock Machine member sentenced
Gets 8 years for drug, weapons trafficking
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/07/2013 (4545 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
The last remaining member of the Manitoba outlaw biker gang the Rock Machine was given a prison sentence Friday for his role in the city’s illegal drug and weapons trade.
Cameron Adam Hemminger, 42, was given an eight-year sentence after he pleaded guilty to charges of trafficking cocaine and guns.
Hemminger was one of four active Rock Machine members caught up in a lengthy RCMP investigation last year that resulted in the arrest of all the gang members and several independent cocaine dealers who dealt with the gang.
The gang was betrayed by one of their own members, who agreed to work as an “agent” for the RCMP, and conducted deals for drugs and guns with the other members while under surveillance and being recorded.
The gang members and their team of dealers were arrested at the end of January, in what the RCMP called Project Dilemma.
The other gang members received sentences ranging from nine to 12 years.
The dealers have all pleaded guilty, with two waiting to be sentenced and the others getting jail terms of five to six years.
The “agent” is now living outside the province in a witness-protection program.
Justice Brenda Keyser accepted the joint Crown and defence recommendation for the eight-year sentence, a plea deal that recognized Hemminger pleaded guilty, avoiding the necessity of a lengthy and expensive trial.
Crown prosecutor Michael Desautels said Hemminger had only become a full-patch member of the Rock Machine in October, after spending the previous year as a prospect.
Defence counsel Barry Sinder said Hemminger had a good job as a heavy-equipment operator for several years but turned to crime after his wife was bedridden with lupus for two years.
Hemminger’s wife and two young children, ages 16 and eight, were in court Friday for the sentencing.
Sinder said Hemminger has turned his back on the criminal life and hopes to return to work when his prison time is up.
Hemminger said he recognized he made a “mistake” in joining the Rock Machine and hoped to make it up to his family for what he had done.
Keyser said had it not been for the plea arrangement, Hemminger deserved a longer sentence.
Hemminger joined the Rock Machine because he believed it shielded him from police scrutiny, Keyser said, adding it wasn’t “just a mistake. This is a lifestyle change you made very deliberately.
“People like you are a scourge on society.”
aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca