A woman caught with nearly half-a-kilogram of cocaine more than four years ago pleaded guilty Monday, Jan. 13 to possession for the purpose of trafficking in B.C. Supreme Court in Prince George.
Robyn Ann Bradley, 36, and co-accused Daryl Michael Tugnum, 56, were originally scheduled for their trial to begin Jan. 6. But Tugnum elected for his case to be sent to Provincial Court, where a disposition hearing is scheduled for Jan. 28.
Bradley’s trial was delayed a week to accommodate the schedule of Crown witnesses. But defence lawyer Jason LeBlond told Justice Marguerite Church that his client would change her plea to the charge under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
In reading a summary of the case, federal prosecutor Mansi Khajuria told Church that “Bradley emerged as another suspected drug trafficker” during a fall 2020 investigation by the Prince George RCMP Street Crew.
When officers focused on Bradley for numerous days in November 2020, they observed her make short-duration stops consistent with drug-trafficking and visits to a suspected safe house. The surveillance coupled with vehicle tracking data led police to develop grounds for Bradley’s arrest on Dec. 3, 2020 while she was alone in a black GMC Canyon pickup truck.
As an officer put her under arrest, a brown paper bag fell from Bradley's jacket to the ground. The officer picked up the bag and found a “large white brick of what appeared to be drugs,” Khajuria said.
Police later weighed the exhibit and confirmed it was 493.98 grams of cocaine, with a purity ranging from 78 per cent to 91 per cent. According to street prices at the time, that much cocaine would have fetched between $17,289 and $49,398, Khajuria said.
Police also found a bag of 7.5 counterfeit pills of the opioid painkiller Percocet and a tube of suspected cannabis. Bradley’s vehicle also contained four cell phones.
LeBlond asked Church to order a standard pre-sentence report and a report analyzing the impacts of Bradley’s Indigenous heritage.
Church set April 7 for the next appearance, to schedule Bradley’s sentencing hearing.
