Charges have been dropped against several of the nine people from across Southwestern Ontario swept up last fall as a joint police taskforce seized drugs and weapons after pulling over a vehicle and raiding homes in Lambton and Middlesex counties.
Charges have been dropped against several of the nine people from across Southwestern Ontario swept up last fall as a joint police taskforce seized drugs and weapons after pulling over a vehicle and raiding homes in Lambton and Middlesex counties.
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The arrests began Nov. 8 shortly before 5 pm when police stopped a vehicle and took two people into custody, Lambton OPP said at the time. Officers seized suspected fentanyl and methamphetamine during the stop.
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Officers arrested a third person while executing a search warrant at a home on George Street in Sarnia and six more people were handcuffed amid a search of a Creamery Road house in Ailsa Craig, police said. Officers seized suspected fentanyl, cocaine, methamphetamine, drug-trafficking paraphernalia, cash, and five weapons, police said.
Donald Rivard, 43, from Sarnia, is facing 11 charges including two counts of possessing fentanyl for the purpose of trafficking and weapons charges, police said. Carly Timms, a 34-year-old Sarnia resident, has been hit with seven charges, some also linked to weapons and possessing fentanyl for the purpose of trafficking, police said.
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A third Sarnia resident, Melissa Matthews, 39, was charged with possessing fentanyl for the purpose of trafficking and possessing a prohibited weapon, police said. Also charged were two London residents, Shane Smith, 35, and Melissa Windsor, 43, and four people from Ailsa Craig: Brent Wasnidge, 34, Shannon Mrnik, 39, Joseph Morley, 43, and Laura Balsdon, 47, police said.
But during a court appearance last Wednesday, all charges Windsor was facing were dropped at the request of the Crown. The fentanyl trafficking charge Matthews was facing also was dropped at the federal prosecutor’s request, but the weapons charge is still outstanding and was adjourned to June 17. All charges against Morley and Balsdon have also been dropped, court staff confirmed that day.
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Timms will be back in court Wednesday and Rivard, the lone person still in custody, will return to court Thursday. Rivard and Timms were in a relationship when they were arrested, according to social media.
Wasnidge and Mrnik are due back in court July 9.
Smith, meanwhile, has been cleared of all charges linked to this probe except for one: a single count of prohibited driving to which he recently pleaded guilty. The court heard police were watching the Creamery Road home on Sept. 27, 2023, when they saw Smith, who was banned from driving in 2021 and again in 2023, get behind the wheel and drive to Thedford.
As a penalty, both the Crown and defense suggested a 30-day jail sentence and another three-year driving ban in return for all other charges linked to the probe being dropped.
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“This obviously, your honor, arose out of a larger problem for Mr. Smith,” defense lawyer Lisa Gunn told Justice Paul Kowalyshyn. “This represents a resolution by the Crown to deal with Mr. Smith’s matters quickly once a determination was made with respect to the viability of the balance of the prosecution.”
“This is a resolution, as Ms. Gunn stated, that was arrived at after much consideration with respect to reasonable prospect of conviction on several other counts,” Nila Mulpuru, Lambton’s acting Crown attorney, confirmed.
Gunn said her client doesn’t have a job, but is able to work and should probably get one.
“He needs to make some better lifestyle choices. He might not find himself arrested in these types of situations,” she said.
Smith declined a chance to address the court.
Kowalyshyn pointed to his prior record, which included breaching probation, breaching release orders and impaired driving along with the three convictions linked to banned driving.
“Mr. Smith, looking at your record, the fact that you’re here again for something similar is very troubling,” he said. “You just seem to be blurting the system and thumbing your nose at court orders or the law, sir, and that needs to change.”
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