Australian judge slams 'like' culture, sentences Quebec drug smuggler to 8 years

[Charlemagne]

Australian judge slams 'like' culture, sentences Quebec drug smuggler to 8 years in prison

Judge Catherine Traill decried the 'vacuous existence' of today's young people

CBC News Posted: Apr 18, 2018 6:43 AM ET | Last Updated: 7 hours ago

An Australian judge has sentenced a Quebec woman to eight years in prison for drug trafficking, in a decision that also criticized young people for their relentless pursuit of social media fame.

Mélina Roberge, 24, was one of two Quebec women involved in smuggling 95 kilograms of cocaine, worth about $20 million, into the country in 2016. She will be eligible for parole on May 27, 2021.

Roberge and her main accomplice, Isabelle Lagacé, 30, made headlines around the world after photos from their supposed cruise ship vacation that showed them posing in exotic locations were posted online.

Roberge told the court she went on the trip so she could get attention on social media, a fact Judge Catherine Traill referred to as "sad indictment" on people her age.

"It is sad they seek to attain such a vacuous existence where how many likes they receive is their currency.

"She wanted to be the envy of others," Traill said. "I doubt she is now the envy of others."

Didn't think it through

During her sentencing hearing last month, Roberge cried while telling the court she chose to go on the trip without thinking about the consequences.

She admitted her role was to make the trip look like a vacation, and that she had no idea how much cocaine was being smuggled into the country.Canadian involved in drug smuggling plot says she made cocaine cruise a vacation3 Canadians charged with smuggling $30M in cocaine on cruise ship in Australia

Roberge told the court that an older man in Montreal who she referred to as her "sugar daddy" offered her the trip as a birthday gift.

Roberge, Lagacé and André Tamine, a 65-year-old Montreal man, were all arrested upon arriving in Australia on Aug. 28, 2016.

Sniffer dogs found 30 kilograms of cocaine in the women's cabin and 65 kilograms in Tamine's cabin.

All three pleaded guilty. Lagacé was sentenced last November to seven years and six months in prison.

Tamine will be sentenced in October.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-cocaine-smuggler-sentence-prison-1.4624409?cmp=FB_Post_News

 

[oil&gas]

A hot young chick like her can easily find a better
sugar daddy. One who offered more than a trip at no
risk. She wasn't very smart or she was just unlucky.

 

[james t kirk]

I was thinking that by "like" , the judge meant how when young people speak, every third word is "like" .

Now I get it.

Good riddance to bad rubbish. She's lucky she didn't try that stunt in Malaysia or Indonesia.

 

[jcpro]

That girl's head so empty, you could use it for a dice cup in a game of Yahtzee. Maybe this stint in prison can teach her something.

 

[Allwomen247]

Was Tamine her sugar daddy?

She doesn’t want to name him out of concern for her families safety in Quebec.

I don’t care if she’s shallow and a drug smuggler, I’d tap that ass....French Canadian women are the best in Canada, they were born to be Strippers (Quebec folk dancers lol) and Escorts

Cheers

 

[Kawailuvr]

I think it is awesome that the judge slammed her , to bad they didn’t get more time in jail !
Greed is a deadly sin for a reason ! Looks good on all of them

 

[Occasionally]

Idiot youngsters.

Hey, I have a FB and LinkedIN account too. FB for fam and friends. I post something 1-2 times per month, and most of it is boring family holiday stuff. LinkedIn for career prospects. I value the recruiter part, but personally don't give a shit at all the people linking with me thinking it's "FB version 2".

Aside from these social media sites, that's it. All the other crap out there about Twitter, Instagram, YT video channel and stuff. Who gives a shit.

Young people should be focusing on getting a good job..... which I said LinkedIn is great for job postings and connecting with potential employers. But some people treat it like FB..... "Happy Bday Bob!"

Instead, I bet most under 30 people focus more on Instagram and sending each other stupid Snapchat images..... which is something I've received at work from the younger crowd...... Hahaha..... look? What? Take a look.... it's you with a pig nose and donkey ears!.....

...... as if I care about seeing that at 10 am at work.

 

[mandrill]

Not sure what the tariff is either here or in OZ for importing that quantity of coke, but the judge fucked up badly in that decision.

Reasons for sentence are supposed to be highly structured and to refer to the mandatory relevant legal issues of general and specific deterrence, rehabilitation potential, protection of society, etc. Someone's tantrum about "kids these days" is none of these. It's like a judge in a commercial lawsuit suddenly ranting about increasing damages because "standards of commercial behaviour are diminishing these days". It's a "WTF Moment" for any lawyer reading the news item.

Now I know the TERB guys like to hear a lot of "kids these days" rants, but they have no place in an intellectual analysis of a legal issue. So that judge made her entire reasoning appealable - at the state's expense BTW!

 

[Smallcock]

What the judge calls "like" culture is here to stay, whether anyone likes it or not.

 

[managee]

Not sure what the tariff is either here or in OZ for importing that quantity of coke, but the judge fucked up badly in that decision.

Reasons for sentence are supposed to be highly structured and to refer to the mandatory relevant legal issues of general and specific deterrence, rehabilitation potential, protection of society, etc. Someone's tantrum about "kids these days" is none of these. It's like a judge in a commercial lawsuit suddenly ranting about increasing damages because "standards of commercial behaviour are diminishing these days". It's a "WTF Moment" for any lawyer reading the news item.

Now I know the TERB guys like to hear a lot of "kids these days" rants, but they have no place in an intellectual analysis of a legal issue. So that judge made her entire reasoning appealable - at the state's expense BTW!

A friend from Oz told me today that the candid moralizing/chastising we heard in this ruling is pretty common, and getting even more common in the Twitter era. She lived with me in Canada for awhile, and never noticed it until she got back home.

We Skyped today because we have a few mutual friends that knew these girls. Lagacé showed up on “friends you may know”/suggestions on FB and Instagram for years. Word is cocaine played a large part in the trifecta of free vacation plus Insta-fame plus ???. The shady sugar daddy was a means to an end, not the cause of her/their current legal predicament.

Those girls made no real secret of their fuel of choice on this vacation, nor their last, which is where they met our friends.

It sucks that they are going to jail, but there’s no way they thought they weren’t guilty AF pulling into Sydney. You don’t travel for that long without having a pretty good idea what’s in your stateroom.

Word is they weren’t particularly discreet and trusted the wrong people on the ship which assured rubber glove treatment on disembarkation. Consensus was, they were a bit rude on and off the ship. But this is just travel-gossip, so who knows.