Kelowna man sentenced to 5 years for fentanyl, cocaine trafficking

A Kelowna man was sentenced to five years in prison this week for trafficking fentanyl and cocaine more than five years earlier.

Larome Sanchez, 27,  was asleep in his Kelowna apartment the morning of March 22, 2017, when police executed a raid and seized a significant cache of cocaine, heroin and fentanyl along with paraphernalia associated with the drug trade, according to a B.C. Supreme Court decision posted online Tuesday.

Among the items discovered by Mounties that morning were $14,815 in cash, 232.4 grams of cocaine, 156.6 grams of heroin and fentanyl, scoresheets, digital scales, safes, a white powder cutting agent, money counters, a vacuum sealer, unused plastic baggies, a naloxone kit and brass knuckles.

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“The amounts and packaging of cocaine and heroin‑fentanyl present in the master bedroom, combined with the presence of cash, scales and scoresheets, is consistent only with the possession of the cocaine and heroin‑fentanyl for the purpose of trafficking,” B.C. Supreme Court Justice Gary Weatherill wrote.

As per a joint submission from Crown counsel and defense, Weatherill sentenced Sanchez to five years in prison, noting that for the most part, his criminal history is not too extensive.

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The only related offence was on April 28, 2017, when he was convicted of two counts of possession for the purpose of trafficking. The offence date on that charge was March 5, 2015 — two years before the matter before the courts this week — and he was sentenced to six months in jail and 12 months’ probation.

Since then, he has been convicted of unrelated offences, including driving offences and forcible entry.

Upon sentencing Sanchez, Weatherill told him that he hoped a lesson was learned.

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“I encourage you to take advantage of all the resources and the programs that will be available to you,” he said.

“I hope you will use your best efforts to be a model prisoner, and that, upon your release, which will come soon enough, you become a productive and law‑abiding member of society. So good luck to you.”

It wasn’t made clear in the online decision why there was a five-year gap between the original arrest and the sentencing.

Charges against Sanchez’s co-accused Nalin Soreni were stayed.