NEWS FILE PHOTO The Medicine Hat Provincial Court is seen in this file photo.
jappel@medicinehatnews.com@MHNJeremyAppel
From drug busts and sex crimes to convictions for large-scale theft and murder, in addition to police saving somebody from attempting suicide, law enforcement had a busy 2019.
In May, former Medicine Hat Police Commission chair Rolf Traichel was sentenced to three years in prison for stealing $999,000 from the Medicine Hat Catholic Board of Education, where he was employed as an IT technician.
Although he was also charged with fraud over $5,000 and money laundering, Traichel pled guilty to possession of stolen property.
Traichel submitted and approved 203 invoices from September 2010 to December 2016 to a company he owned and controlled without the MHCBE’s knowledge.
He sat on the police commission from 2012-2017, serving as its chair from 2014-2016.
Sex crimes
Cody Herrell was charged with bestiality and sexual assault, as well as accessing, distributing and possessing child pornography in September.
He was arrested after ALERT exercised a search warrant on his residence, uncovering evidence of bestiality involving multiple dogs and sexual assault against at least one unidentified child who is believed to have been known to him.
Herrell was expelled from the nursing program at Medicine Hat College and banned from campus as a result of the charges.
His next court appearance is scheduled for the new year.
Found guilty
Noah Bentley was found guilty in October of second degree murder in relation to the brutal 2016 stabbing death of 54-year-old Brenda Woloski.
The fact that Bentley strangled the victim before stabbing her 26 times was not in dispute. Bentley repeatedly confessed to the grisly crime in the 24 hours after his arrest.
Rather, the three-day trial focused on whether the accused could be found criminally responsible for his actions.
Judge Glen Poelman ruled that Bentley had to have understood the consequences of his actions, given his repeated confessions and detailed description of the house where the murder occurred.
Fentanyl bust
In July, police arrested a woman who had been selling fentanyl, methamphetamine and cocaine while out on bail for her role in a 2018 unlawful confinement case.
Cops seized 67 grams of fentanyl – the largest seizure of the deadly opioid in the city’s history – 96 grams of meth and 48 grams of cocaine, as well as $5,580 in Canadian currency, a functioning scale, batons and nunchucks.
Theresa Babitzke pled guilty in November to three counts of possession for the purposes of trafficking, breach her bail terms and possessing the proceeds of crime.
She had already pled guilty to possessing meth for the purposes of trafficking and unlawful confinement in relation to an incident where Babitzke tied a woman to a chair in her house while another woman – Amanda Kaye – allegedly beat, robbed and extorted her.
Babitzke – who suffers from early-onset dementia — was sentenced to a total of five years imprisonment for both incidents.
Top honour
To end on a positive note, Medicine Hat Police Service Sgt. Stacey Kesler and Const. Jason Dola received official recognition in late November for talking down a suicidal man who was prepared to jump off the Trans-Canada Bridge.
Dola was the first to arrive on the scene, putting into practice his “verbal judo” skills he learned in training to verbally diffuse the situation.
Meanwhile, Kesler arrived on scene to co-ordinate the response of the fire department, aquatics team and foot patrol officers, in addition to blocking off highway traffic to give Dola room to maneuver.
Dola was able to convince the man to come to the hospital. The entire incident – from bridge to hospital – took less than an hour.
