Paige Desmond
Former district resident Donald Smith, now living in Kenora, won’t learn until sometime next month his sentence after being convicted earlier this year of four counts related to making, possessing, and distributing obscene material.
The exact date has not been set yet.
The sentencing hearing, which was expected to be completed yesterday in Ontario Superior Court here, was prolonged by several motions proposed by the defence related to the admissibility of evidence to be included in the Crown’s sentencing recommendation.
Assistant Crown Attorney Kent Saliwonchyk is requesting Smith be placed on probation and pay a $98,000 fine.
If he’s unable to pay the fine, the Crown is seeking 1,000 hours of community service from Smith, or a combination of fines and community hours.
The defence, meanwhile, is seeking the proceeding be suspended or that there be a “stay of proceedings” which, for the purpose of an appeal, would be considered an acquittal, attorney John Bilton said.
Citing the eight years of legal proceedings, costs of litigation, nearly three years of probation, and the suspension of producing the materials in question, Smith already has served retribution, Bilton argued.
Saliwonchyk countered, submitting his opinion to presiding Justice Jack McCartney that “the fine takes into appropriate consideration” the offences for which Smith has been found guilty and the need to repair harm done by those actions to the community.
Smith was found guilty by a jury May 29 in his second trial on charges stemming from an OPP
investigation back in October, 2000.
Smith originally was found guilty on five charges in late 2002 and was sentenced to a precedent-setting $100,000 fine, which later was reduced to $2,000 by the Court of Appeal.
This second trial is the result of a Court of Appeal ruling to grant Smith a new trial on four of the five charges.
