While sentencing a Southwestern Ontario man to 11 years in prison for a $5-million cocaine bust at the Blue Water Bridge, a Sarnia judge said his moral blameworthiness was very high.
While sentencing a Southwestern Ontario man to 11 years in prison for a $5-million cocaine bust at the Blue Water Bridge, a Sarnia judge said his moral blameworthiness was very high.
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Olanrewaju (Michael) Ojelade, a 34-year-old Brantford man who used to recruit teenage basketball players, knew cocaine is an insidious, addictive drug that could end up in the hands of young people, the judge said.
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“He simply did not care. He put profit and money ahead of the physical safety and well-being of others and their families,” Superior Court Justice Russell Raikes said Wednesday. “There is no excuse for his conduct.”
Ojelade was arrested on May 24, 2019 at the span linking the Sarnia area to Michigan after Canada Border Services Agency officers found 48 one-kilogram packages of cocaine neatly stacked in a secret steel compartment hidden under the third row of seats in his 2013 Chevrolet Traverse, a short document said. The drugs, later found to be between 85 and 91 per cent pure, were worth between $2.3 and $5.3 million, he said.
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Ojelade was initially charged with drug possession, importing and trafficking. More than four years later and after a three-week trial that had been adjourned multiple times, Ojelade pleaded guilty to one count of importing.
During a sentencing hearing in January, Stephane Marinier, a Public Prosecution Service of Canada lawyer, argued for 12 years as he believes Ojelade was working with a criminal organization and conspired with them to bring a massive amount of cocaine into Canada.
“He was motivated by greed and greed only,” he said. “His moral blameworthiness is as high as you can get.”
Investigators probed the search history of Ojelade’s seized phone and computers after his arrest and found they’d looked up high-end money counters and large cocaine-related arrests, including of a Toronto man in Indiana in March 2019 with nearly 58 grams of cocaine stashed in a similar hidden compartment, the document says. Ojelade and the man talked on the phone before the Indiana arrest. He also frequently called and messaged another contact for several weeks before his arrest near Sarnia.
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His lawyer countered in January with nine years. Scott Cowan, an agent for Ojelade’s lawyer, Christopher Murphy, argued all drug importation cases involve a network of planning and Ojelade was just a middleman or courier who didn’t live an opulent lifestyle.
While explaining Wednesday why he landed on 11 years, Raikes said it wasn’t a crime of opportunity.
“His actions were planned. He knew what he was doing,” he said. “He took a business risk he would not get caught. He was wrong.”
The court heard Ojelade had no prior criminal record and is a religious man devoted to his large family. But Marinier pointed out his family was involved in the first part of his journey to the US nearly five years ago.
Records show Ojelade, his partner and their children crossed into Port Huron, Mich., in a Buick Enclave on May 15, 2019, and Ojelade’s father followed soon after in the Traverse. They had dinner in nearby Fort Gratiot, Mich., then Ojelade’s family, including his father, returned to Canada in the Buick while he continued in the Traverse to Hesperia, Calif., a short document says.
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Ojelade arrived back at the Blue Water Bridge about 3 pm on May 24, 2019 and told a Canadian border officer he’d been in the US for nine days for a religious function in Utah. He said he bought books and miscellaneous items for $50 and had nothing else to declare.
But he was sent for an investigation and officers, with the help of drug-detecting dogs and large vehicle X-rays, found the hidden compartment and the drugs.
“It is a massive quantity of cocaine,” packaged for wholesale, Marinier said.
The way the third row of seats in his SUV was bolted to the secret steel case posed a dangerous risk to anyone sitting there, including his children, Marinier added.
Ojelade directly addressed the judge in January. He apologized for what he did and admitted knowing what he did was wrong, but added he wanted to be a model prisoner and grow as a person while in custody.
“I’m taking you at your word,” Raikes said Wednesday.
This was the second double-digit prison sentence handed out for cocaine importation at the Blue Water Bridge in recent months. A Brampton trucker recently got 11 years in prison after he was found guilty at trial of trying to smuggle $3.5 million of cocaine.
A dozen others drug importation cases, almost all involving truckers, are still before the Sarnia courts.
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