Court to listen to hours of phone calls in Hotchen drug, firearm trial

By Jeremy Appel on December 5, 2018.

jappel@medicinehatnews.com @MHNJeremyAppel

Court heard the beginning of hours of recorded phone calls from the Medicine Hat Remand Centre in Aaron Hotchen’s trial on drug and firearm charges.

Hotchen was arrested Oct. 22, 2016, after police executed a search warrant on a farm near Seven Persons, seizing methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, a sawed-off shotgun, ammunition, cash and an unidentified white powder.

The accused maintains the items seized, except for the cash, didn’t belong to him.

The phone calls occurred in late October 2016.

Crown prosecutor Jeremy Newton said Tuesday he wanted to play only relevant excerpts from the phone conversations, but defence lawyer Marc Crarer said this would be prejudicial to Hotchen.

“If we only hear excerpts … we have a situation where the full context of the call isn’t before the courts,” said Crarer.

Judge Paul Pharo agreed, ordering Newton to play the calls in their entirety, which will likely take the rest of the week.

Lethbridge Police Service Const. Chris Running, who was confirmed as an expert witness by Pharo in the morning, sat at a desk beside the witness stand taking notes while the recordings played, while Hotchen sat in the dock looking visibly embarrassed.

Many of the conversations were between Hotchen and his then-girlfriend, where he repeatedly expressed his affection for her before apparently playing up his status in the ranks of organized crime in the city.

“You were meant to be my girl,” Hotchen said in one of the recordings.

He then said that he wanted to form a gang called the “Gas City Gangsters,” of which he would be the “godfather.”

Hotchen told his girlfriend that she could be the “first Gas City Gal.”

He denied any knowledge of the items seized from the acreage, but boasted of his purported past involvement in the drug trade.

“I am the original guy who brought cocaine to this town 30-40 years ago,” Hotchen was recorded saying.

The trial continues today.

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