Hotchen’s sentence appeal process continues
By JEREMY APPEL on March 6, 2020.
jappel@medicinehatnews.com
Aaron Hotchen’s appeal of his 7.5-year prison sentence for several gun and drug trafficking offences is inching along through the court system.
Hotchen’s next appearance is scheduled for March 24 in the Calgary Court of Appeal, where he will appear via video conference from the Bowden Institution.
Hotchen was arrested in October 2016, after police executed a search warrant on an acreage in Seven Persons, finding meth, cocaine, a mixture of heroin and fentanyl, an unidentified white powder, sawed-off shotgun, ammunition and cash.
At this point, Hotchen has no counsel, nor has he submitted any materials to the court.
However, his notice of appeal, which was filed Dec. 17 but dated Dec. 3, says the individual he claims the drugs found on his property belonged to has sent a sworn affidavit to Calgary-based attorney Alias Sanders attesting that Hotchen wasn’t aware of the drugs’ presence.
He also claims his “co-accused received half the sentence” as him, despite their “involvement (being) much more dramatic than drugs found under a vehicle on (an) acreage.”
But there is no co-accused on that file.
Hotchen’s next appearance isn’t the actual hearing, but will provide him the opportunity to update the court on whether he is continuing with the appeal before it proceeds.
He was convicted in July 2019 of possessing methamphetamine, cocaine and fentanyl for the purposes of trafficking and possessing an illegal firearm, as well as three breaches, after a three-week trial, much of which involved listening to 30 hours of recordings of phone conversations he made at the Medicine Hat Remand Centre.
The Crown said those recordings revealed that he was a major player in the regional drug trade, while his defence contended he was merely being boastful.
12
-11
