A photo of Carson Crimeni is projected on a wall as people listen during a celebration of life for the late 14-year-old in Langley, B.C., on Thursday August 29, 2019. A man has been sentenced to 18 months in jail with another 18 months of conditional supervision after pleading guilty to manslaughter in the high-profile overdose death of Carson Crimeni in Metro Vancouver four years ago. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C. – A man has been sentenced to 18 months in jail with another 18 months of conditional supervisionafter pleading guilty to manslaughter in the high-profile overdose death of a 14-year-old boy in Metro Vancouver.
Justice Kathleen Ker says Carson Crimeni died of acute intoxication from an “exceedingly high” dosage of the drug MDMA sold to him by the man, who cannot be named because he was a youth at the time of the crime on Aug. 7, 2019.
Before delivering the sentence in British Columbia Supreme Court, Ker told the gallery that other young people saw Carson in “obvious distress” that day in a park in Langley, B.C.
Instead of calling for help, she says they took videos of Carson and shared them on social media, behaviour she likened to a modern-day “Lord of the Flies.”
Ker told the court in New Westminster, B.C., that on the day he died, Crimeni had asked a friend to get in touch with the now 21-year-old man in order to buy MDMA.
She says the man “over-served” Crimeni, and while he may not have intended to kill the boy, his conduct in selling a “massive” amount of the drug was “criminally reckless.”
The judge told the sentencing hearing on Thursday that the conditions of the man’s release following jail time are to be set at a later date.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 26, 2023.
