A judge has sent a former member of the Hell’s Angels biker gang back to prison for eight years.
Billy Bowden, 37, was arrested and charged with trafficking cocaine in a 2011 sting by Winnipeg Police called ‘Project Deplete’.
On Friday, Bowden, dressed in a grey jumpsuit wearing shackles, appeared before Judge Chris Martin and pleaded guilty to the charge.
On a joint recommendation by the Crown and his Defence, he was sentenced to eight years in prison, minus the seven months he’s already served for a total of seven years and five months behind bars.
Court heard in October 2011, Winnipeg Police paid an agent half a million dollars to make a drug trade with Bowden which would lead to his arrest.
On October 18, the agent and Bowden, who had been friends for 20 years, met at a restaurant on St. Mary’s Road where the agent asked Bowden to get him half a kilogram of cocaine but Bowden would only trade one kilogram.
The two met several times after in the Glenwood Community Centre parking lot and at Bubble Bistro to arrange the transaction.
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On December 1, the agent gave Bowden $52,000 cash in a bag, five days later the delivery was suppose to be made at a 7-11 on St. Mary’s Road but instead Bowden went to the agent’s home.
The agent contacted police and they made arrangements to record the conversation.
Bowden arrived and put the cocaine in a cabinet in the bathroom and left. The agent retrieved it and handed it over to police.
On February 3, Bowden was arrested on Pembina Highway and officers seized a boat, SUV and a Motorcycle.
He’s been in custody at Milner Ridge Correction Centre since.
In August 2010, Bowden pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the 2007 stabbing death of Jeff Engen at the Empire Caberet on Main Street Downtown.
He was sentenced to four years but received double time for the two years be was already in jail and walked free that day.
Friday, Bowden’s lawyer Sheldon Pinx said his client was a changed man and was making efforts to upgrade his grade 12 and go to school when he was “targeted” by the police and the agent.
When asked if he had anything to say, Bowden stood up and said, “No sir, my lawyer has said everything.”
But Judge Martin didn’t buy that Bowden was targeted saying, “there’s really little doubt in my mind that you were fairly intimate and an involved player to be able to access cocaine at this quality and this quantity.”
Martin agreed to the joint recommendation but expressed doubt that Bowden was turning his life around saying, “whether the next period of time you have incarcerated will provide you with a turning point, I don’t know. It may well be that you’ve made a determination with your life that crime is going to be your business and going to pay, and if your go to jail for periods of time, that’s just the cost of doing business.”
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