Two men convicted of possession for the purpose of trafficking in connection with the largest cocaine bust in B.C. history will continue to serve lengthy prison sentences.
On Thursday, the B.C. Court of Appeal dismissed a bid by Scott Pedersen, a commercial diver and former Port Hardy fisherman, and Mexican fisherman Vincente Serrano-Hernandez to have their convictions overturned.
The two men were found guilty in 2011 of transporting 1,001 one-kilogram bricks of cocaine from Panama to Port Hardy aboard the sailing vessel Huntress.
In March 2010, Pedersen and Serrano-Hernandez off-loaded $26 million in cocaine into a waiting Zodiac at Shushartie Bay, near the northern tip of Vancouver Island.
Justice Jennifer Power sentenced Pedersen and Serrano-Hernandez to 16 years in prison. They have more than nine years left on their sentences.
The two appealed on the grounds that they were improperly arrested when they sailed into Port Hardy and that evidence found on board the Huntress during unlawful police searches should have been excluded. Police searched the Huntress four times without a warrant.
The appeal court dismissed these grounds of appeal.
Pedersen and Serrano-Hernandez also appealed on the grounds that a “trophy” police press conference should have resulted in a stay of proceedings.
The trial judge said it would have been difficult to know how many people in Greater Victoria — where the trial was held — would have seen or been aware of the press conference.
“The conference does, in many respects, have a trophy or self-congratulatory aspect to it, which would be more appropriate at the conclusion of the case, rather than when the case is before the court,” wrote Power, who refused to stay the proceedings.
The appeal court agreed that care must be taken to avoid prejudice when a trial will be held before a jury, but recognized that there is a strong public interest in fully reporting news in a timely manner. It agreed with the trial judge that there was no prejudice to the accused.
While the appeal court found that the trial judge erred in admitting evidence from a police dog handler, “there was no miscarriage of justice or substantive wrong,” Justice Harvey Groberman wrote.
The case against the men began in November 2009 when the RCMP received information that a fishing vessel with a large quantity of cocaine was sailing from Panama to Ecuador, then to Vancouver Island. The informant said the “mother ship” would unload its cargo onto smaller boats before it arrived in port.
On March 5, 2010, a company contracted by the Department of National Defence was performing routine aerial patrols when one of the operators saw a double-masted sailing vessel near Cape Scott.
Because it was unusual to see a sailboat in that area at that time of year, the pilots hailed the vessel. A man replied that the boat was the Huntress, that it had sailed from Panama and was bound was Port Hardy. He did not reply when the pilots asked for the boat’s registration number and call sign.
The pilots later saw the ship change course and enter Shushartie Bay at 4 a.m. A small Zodiac went out to meet it and made two or three trips between the Huntress and the shore.
RCMP officers were waiting for the sailboat when it arrived in Port Hardy on March 6, 2010.
Later that day, the RCMP Emergency Response Team found a beached Zodiac with 37 large blue duffel bags at Shushartie Bay. Inside the bags were 1,001 individually wrapped one-kilogram bricks of cocaine.
