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Brent Miles Taylor walks to court on Wednesday, May 9, 2012 in Regina, Sask.Photograph by: TROY FLEECE , REGINA LEADER-POST |
REGINA — To a group of drug smugglers at the Regina Correctional Centre, longtime guard Brent Miles Taylor was known as "The Eagle," a jury was told Wednesday.
According to the opening statement by prosecutor Doug Curliss, the Crown plans to show that when packages were sent via Taylor to two inmates from their contacts on the outside, a call followed asking, "Has the Eagle landed?" Calls between the inmates and two women were captured in wiretaps.
The Crown alleges Taylor delivered some 30 to 40 tobacco pouches, containing marijuana, hash oil, Dilaudid, cocaine, and morphine, to inmates Sanford Brass and Kevin Lee Stonechild, two men with lengthy criminal histories.
However, Curliss told the jury, Taylor maintained in an interview with police that he delivered only three packages and thought they held tobacco. According to Curliss, Taylor told police, "I didn't know there was anything else in those packages."
However, the two women he allegedly got the packages from are expected to testify that Taylor was paid between $100 and $500 cash for the deliveries.
"To quote a TV show, somebody has some 'splain'n to do," Curliss told the seven-woman, five-man jury as he provided a "roadmap" of the case he expects to present during the two-week trial.
"Did the accused know what he was doing or did he turn a blind eye to it?" asked Curliss.
Taylor, 50, has pleaded not guilty to 15 charges — breach of trust by bringing contraband into the Regina jail, conspiracy to traffic in drugs, possession of proceeds of crime, five counts each of drug trafficking and possession of drugs for the purpose of trafficking, attempting to obstruct justice and breaching a release condition that he not contact a Crown witness. The bulk of the offences are alleged to have occurred between Jan. 1, 2007 and Feb. 27, 2010. The latter two charges are alleged to have occurred on Jan. 5, 2011.
Court heard Taylor was hired as a jail guard in 1987, and had, on occasion, held supervisory positions.
The Crown alleges two women who were friends of the inmates repacked red Number 7 brand tobacco pouches with contraband, including syringes, drugs, lighters and tobacco papers. The pouches were then allegedly given to Taylor to take to Brass and Stonechild at the jail.
A November 2008 search of a cell that housed Brass and Stonechild turned up tobacco, drugs, and cigarette papers — but no tobacco pouch. Court heard that smoking products were also considered contraband at the tobacco-free jail.
After police launched an investigation in April 2009, a tracking device was put on Taylor's pickup truck. Between Aug. 19, 2009 and March 8, 2010, it recorded the vehicle twice stopping at a Regina house where the women resided.
Under questioning by defence lawyer James Korpan, RCMP Cpl. Rob Nicholas agreed that despite 90 surveillance reports, no one ever saw a meeting between Taylor and the two women. "I can't tell you want happened when we weren't watching," he added.
Correctional Centre director Brad Magnusson testified that the jail has an "underground economy" in contraband goods, which enter the facility in a variety of ways — from being tossed over the fence to hidden inside body cavities. He said that as part of the guards' training, they are warned about contraband and to keep a "respectful, arms-length relationship with inmates."
In cross-examination, Magnusson agreed that even some staff have trouble with the no-tobacco policy, and a manager smoking on the roof once dropped a cigarette down a drainpipe, igniting a fire.
bpacholik@leaderpost.com
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