Found with 200 grams of crack cocaine in his Yellowknife apartment, Kenneth White was sentenced Wednesday to 32 months in prison.
On Aug. 15, 2020 a team from the Yellowknife RCMP confiscated the drugs from White’s apartment along with $235 that he was carrying. Though his partner and their 15-year-old daughter were home at the time, the offender assured the authorities the trafficking was “all on me and that his family had no involvement in the matter.”
This is White’s second offence under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
Though Crown Prosecutor Brendan Green noted 200 grams to be a large quantity of cocaine, he said White’s early guilty plea and cooperation with investigators were mitigating factors.
He characterized White’s involvement in the drug trafficking operation to be commercial, rather than wholesale, which calls for a higher range of sentencing.
Judge Donovan Molloy accepted the Crown and defence lawyers’ joint recommendation of 32 months imprisonment.
Molloy reiterated the “devastating effects that drugs and crack have on communities,” especially remote communities, he said.
He told White that while he appreciates the difficulties in his personal circumstances, “clearly you made the wrong choice, you know that.”
“This is a tough sentence, but it’s not something that you can’t recover from,” Molloy said.
White apologized to the court, to his family – seated in the gallery of the courtroom – and to all those impacted by his crimes.
“I’m very sorry to the families I’ve hurt and the lives I’ve destroyed,” he said.
White hugged and said his goodbyes to family before being taken into custody.