Time added on for jail no-show, will now serve straight sentence
By JEREMY APPEL on May 31, 2019.
jappel@medicinehatnews.com
A man who twice failed to show up to his intermittent jail sentence for his role in a case of unlawful confinement has been sentenced to an additional 37 days in custody.
“I just want to get this all done and over with,” said Matthew Babitzke, 30, who was previously sentenced to six months in jail to be served on weekends. Due to his nonattendance, that sentence has been collapsed into straight time.
He appeared via closed-circuit TV in provincial court Thursday, where he pled guilty to two counts of being unlawfully at large, which he was charged with when he failed to show up at the remand centre on April 19 and May 10, as well as several other offences that occurred while he was out of jail.
“I’m not sure his life was stable enough to complete an intermittent sentence,” said Crown prosecutor Ramona Robins.
On April 24 – between his two unlawfully at large charges – police were called to El Bronco Motel with reports of a suspicious person.
When they arrived, they found Babitzke hiding in a shed with seven grams of methamphetamine in a pill bottle. Babitzke pled guilty Thursday to possessing meth.
Prior to failing to show up to jail, he was arrested twice for possessing stolen gasoline, with a total value of $130. Babitzke also pled guilty to those charges.
Finally, he failed to show up to court May 7, three days before the last time he failed to attend his intermittent sentence.
Babitzke was arrested in October 2018 with two co-accused – his mother, Theresa, and Amanda Kaye – after a woman was forcibly confined to a house in the city’s southeast, where she was allegedly beaten with a pipe, robbed and extorted.
Prior to pleading guilty to unlawful confinement, Matthew had no criminal record.
With credit for time-served, he will serve an additional 22 days in jail on top of his initial sentence.
Theresa’s sentencing for unlawful confinement and possessing meth for the purposes of trafficking was initially scheduled for Thursday, but got adjourned to June 25.
Kaye, who faces charges of assault with a weapon, robbery, extortion and unlawful confinement, has a preliminary hearing slated for Oct. 24 – a year to the day of the trio’s arrest.
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