In October 2015, Dustin Sand organized a home invasion, fuelled by jealousy, that went awry when the target of his hatred killed an intruder.
Corey Favel, 25, was among four men who stormed the home, wearing masks and carrying weapons. In a room thick with pepper spray and chaos, Steven Lamarsh fired his gun and hit Favel.
Lamarsh wasn’t charged. Instead, Sand was charged with manslaughter in connection with Favel’s death. During his sentencing hearing on Friday in Saskatoon Court of Queen’s Bench, the Crown argued for a 10-year sentence, calling Sand the “mastermind” of the robbery.
Sand pleaded guilty in the middle of his June 2018 trial. He told police, in a statement played in court, that he left a pop can in the driveway to mark his former home on Garrison Crescent in Saskatoon’s Grosvenor Park neighbourhood.
He said he wanted four men — Favel, his brother Cody, Nathanial Narula and Nicholas MacLeod — to attack Lemarsh and “take everything he had.” Sand hated that Lemarsh was living with the woman he used to live with, Anita Lynn Favreau, who was later sentenced for high-level meth trafficking.
Sand sent the men to the home knowing Lemarsh had a gun, prosecutor Melodi Kujawa argued.
“Not a surprise, in those circumstances, that someone ended up dead,” she said.
The home invasion was unique because the man charged with manslaughter never set foot in the house, and the victim was an intruder, not a resident, court heard.
Favel made a bad choice, but he didn’t deserve to die over Sand’s “beef” with Lemarsh, Kujawa said.
A month earlier, Sand and two others broke into an occupied home near MacDowall, where an elderly man was pepper sprayed and hit with his own gun when he tried to defend himself. The invasion was driven by the need for drug money and was completely random, court heard.
The Crown and defence from Prince Albert jointly submitted a six-year sentence, on top of the manslaughter sentence, after Sand pleaded guilty to breaking and entering to commit robbery and aggravated assault.
Sand’s Saskatoon lawyer, Kathy Hodgson-Smith, argued her client should serve a seven-year prison term — the same sentence his co-accused received after pleading guilty to breaking and entering.
He was the only one charged with manslaughter, but his role wasn’t much worse than the intruders’ role, Hodgson-Smith argued. She said the men wanted drugs and money and had their own reasons for breaking into the house, which Sand never entered.
His Gladue factors, which courts must consider when sentencing Indigenous offenders, were intensively canvassed. Hodgson-Smith said his struggles — drug addiction, abuse, poverty, isolation — are part of historical trauma and a cumulative psychological “wounding” that has crossed generations. A sentence that addresses rehabilitation is necessary, she argued.
Kujawa said Sand, whose criminal record includes six prior violent offences, has had many chances for treatment and programming.
“(He) always says he’ll change, but makes no effort to do so,” she told court.
In a pre-sentence report outlined in court, Sand blamed his behaviour on drugs and alcohol, Kujawa noted. On Friday, he told the court he takes full responsibility for his crimes and apologized to everyone he hurt. He said Favel was his friend.
Kujawa pointed out that Favel’s mother lost two sons that day: one to a gunshot and the other to prison.
Justice Richard Danyliuk has reserved his decision until May 9.