A B.C. man who pleaded guilty to possession of fentanyl and carfentanil for the purpose of trafficking in Vancouver and Surrey has been sentenced to a total of 900 days in prison.
“The gravity of these offences is at the high end,” said Vancouver Provincial Court Judge Andrea Brownstone this week.
However, with some sentences to run concurrently and consecutively with time served prior to sentencing deducted, Steven Alexander Romine-Le will serve 837 days.
He is already on a conditional sentence order. Brownstone said such a sentence was not appropriate in the circumstances.
Romine-Le had initially been charged with 14 counts of possession for the purpose of trafficking.
Brownstone sentenced him on two counts he had pleaded guilty to.
She said that, on March 16, 2022, Romine-Le was found in Vancouver with 23 baggies containing 7.3 grams of fentanyl and carfentanil as well as 54 baggies with fentanyl, carfentanil and caffeine.
Not part of the charges to which he pleaded guilty was a finding that he allegedly had other drugs including cocaine.
On Sept. 29, 2022, police saw a transaction take place in Surrey leading to Romine-Le being found with 33.3 grams of either carfentanil, fentanyl or caffeine.
Not part of the guilty pleas was Romine-Le allegedly having 27.5 grams of cocaine.
“The drugs that Mr. Romine-Le possessed for the purposes of trafficking on two occasions were deadly drugs,” Brownstone said.
While the Crown asked for 42 months total, the defence asked for a conditional discharge and probation.
Brownstone said that, as Romine-Le is already on a conditional sentence and that such sentences cannot exceed two years, such a sentence was not possible in the case.
She said Romine-Le, whose mother was a member of the Saulteau First Nation and father was Vietnamese, came from a fractured family where violence and substance abuse were common. She noted the family had suffered the effects of residential schools.
The court heard Romine-Le was put into foster care when he was 16.
She heard he sold drugs to support his own substance abuse problems but has worked to improve himself with housing, employment and help.
The earlier conditional sentence was imposed by Judge Nancy Adams in January for a case involving stabbings at Richmond Centre Mall in 2021. There, Romine-Le pleaded guilty to assault causing bodily harm in a 2020 stranger attack where a man suffered 16 stab wounds.
He was given an 18-month conditional sentence.
Romine-Le was one of three people charged in connection with the Nov. 1, 2020 incident where a man coming out of the mall was attacked with a knife and baton.
Judge Adams called the crime a “horrific assault.”
She said it was an “unprovoked assault on an innocent person.”
