AILING PRISON DRUG-SMUGGLER GETS JAIL TIME

A frail 57-year-old maintenance worker who helped smuggle drugs into Stony
Mountain prison will spend the next 26 months in jail, a court decided
yesterday.

In handing down the sentence, Madam Justice Lea Duval said Kenneth Mollard,
a garbage collector at Stony Mountain, was an "integral and important part
of the smuggling operation" who used his position of trust to carry cocaine
and marijuana to inmates inside the prison walls.

"He could go in and out without being searched," she said.

"His conduct was planned and deliberate and ongoing and it was especially
serious because it took place inside a prison."

Duval noted she took Mollard's failing health and his doctor's
recommendations against incarceration into consideration but added the
man's actions called for a jail term.

"A conditional sentence (served in the community) would be viewed by the
public and employees of penal institutions as very lenient and would fail
to deter others from committing similar offences," she said, pointing to
testimony from Stony Mountain's gang co-ordinator.

Ray Gawryluk had spoken of the violence and unrest that can occur in the
jail when inmates get their hands on drugs.

Mollard, who has had two heart attacks and is dealing with a variety of
other health problems, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to traffic
in narcotics and one count of bribery.

During his sentencing hearing, court heard Mollard was paid to collect
packages filled with drugs outside a pump house near the prison and take
the drugs inside to inmates, most of whom were members of biker gangs.

Mollard was arrested with 16 others. In all, more than a quarter-ounce of
cocaine, 215 Valium-type pills and more than three ounces of marijuana were
smuggled into the prison during the police sting.

The police investigation relied heavily on information obtained by a paid
agent - formerly known as Margo Redsky - who delivered the drugs to the
pump house and took orders for drugs from inmates.

During the first day of Mollard's sentencing hearing, Redsky, who was paid
$150,000 for her work as an agent, testified under heavy security that
Mollard was the man who collected the drugs and delivered them inside.

Checked-by: Pat Dolan