Trafficker or courier: lawyers seek to make case at sentencing hearing

Crown attorneys sought to convince a Court of King’s Bench judge a man caught on police wiretaps discussing cocaine deals was a mid-level trafficker, with defence lawyers arguing he was a mere courier.

The difference: potentially years in prison.

Jerimiah Bruce Alcera, 25, pleaded guilty Dec. 20, 2022, to one count of conspiracy to commit an indictable offence, specifically trafficking cocaine.

Winnipeg police charged him in April 2021.

On Friday, Crown attorneys Jean-Pierre Deniset and Kirsty Elgert sought a 5 1/2-year prison sentence for Alcera.

Defence lawyers Brad Erratt and Mark Wasyliw countered with a two-year community supervision order, plus three years of probation.

Justice Theodor Bock will issue his decision later this spring, following a full day’s submissions at the sentencing hearing in Winnipeg.

Court heard Alcera had been ensnared in what city police drug investigators dubbed “Project Gold Dust,” probing an inter-provincial cocaine trafficking network.

The investigation began in May 2020, and culminated with police in Winnipeg, Vancouver and Surrey, B.C., executing 26 search warrants Feb. 10, 2021.

Eleven people were initially charged. It was, at the time, the largest seizure in Winnipeg police history: an estimated $11.5 million in illicit drugs, cash, properties, vehicles and guns.

“This was entirely profit- and greed-driven,” Elgert said of Alcera’s involvement in the network its dealers dubbed “the company.”

“He chose to make an easy buck.”

Court heard Friday the case included more than 14,000 intercepted communications — phone calls and text messages — as well as physical and electronic surveillance and covert search warrants.

The Crown relied on more than a dozen of those intercepted phone calls made between Alcera and his older cousin, Joshua David Espiritu, between September 2020 and February 2021, playing the recordings in court and asking Sgt. Michelle Bacik, head of WPS drug enforcement unit, to testify with analysis of the calls.

Espiritu was sentenced in provincial court in December 2022 to six years in custody, after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit an indictable offence.

Court heard Alcera had started working for the drug cell his cousin ran within the network in late September 2020.

When Alcera’s house was searched, police seized cellphones, what appeared to notes of money owed, and drug packaging, including four bags that had previously contained kilograms of the cocaine, contaminated with the drug.

The Crown lawyers argued the calls and the bags demonstrated Alcera was mid-level in the network, considering his being given an encrypted communication device, deliveries of large quantities of cocaine or cash, and discussions about bringing on new employees.

Bacik testified the calls demonstrated he was trusted within the drug network, though Erratt later tried to cast doubt on that assertion, in part by noting Alcera and Espiritu are cousins.

He argued Espiritu may have trusted Alcera, but the Crown hadn’t proved the rest of the network did.

Erratt also argued the calls didn’t prove his involvement beyond that of a courier tasked with transporting cocaine or cash from one point to another.

“He can only be classified as a mere courier,” Erratt told Bock. “He was recruited and groomed for that position by his older cousin whom he trusted.”

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @erik_pindera