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A pharmacist who helped supply illegal fentanyl to a Sudbury drug pusher has been given a break on the length of her jail sentence.
The case involves Shereen El-Azrak, a Toronto area woman who was convicted of trafficking in fentanyl and possession of fentanyl for the purpose of trafficking, said a transcript from the Ontario Court of Appeal. She had been serving a 13-year sentence.
"She used her position as a pharmacist to dispense fentanyl patches that were later trafficked on the streets of Sudbury," said the court document.
El-Azrak had her conviction and jail sentence appealed. The decision was handed down on June 20, 2023.
The appeal was heard by Associate Chief Justice Michal Fairburn, Justice Lise G. Favreau, and Justice Alison Harvison Young.
The court rejected the appeal for the conviction but agreed to shorten the trafficking sentence, and possession for the purpose of trafficking, concurrently to eight years.
The appeal court also wrote that El-Azrak may seek early parole based on the fact that she suffers from a rare medical condition, “Von Hippel Lindau Disease (‘VHL’), and that the disease affects various parts of the body, leading to both cancerous and non-cancerous tumours and lesions which can be recurrent, multiple and unpredictable."
The appeal court said the original trial judge did not fully appreciate the medical condition and how it would impact El-Azrak in prison. The court also mentioned there is no cure for the disease. The court document said the trial judge was aware of this.
"The trial judge found that while incarceration would be difficult for the appellant (El-Azrak), he was satisfied that her medical condition could be ‘monitored in custody.’ He also found that, while the consequences of her incarceration on her children was ‘unfortunate,’ she ‘should have thought of these consequences before engaging in serious criminal activity,’” said the appeal court.
The appellant had also argued for a "conditional sentence" which would allow the convicted person to serve their sentence in the community under conditions of strict supervision.
The court acknowledged that the conditional sentence procedure was not in place when the original sentence was imposed in 2019. Regardless, the court said the original crime was too serious for a condition sentence.
"It would not be appropriate to impose one in this case. Quite simply, the extreme gravity of what the appellant did cries out for a custodial sentence of some length," the appeal court decided.
The original case goes back to 2015, when the Ontario College of Pharmacists (OCP) was investigating a pharmacy owned by El-Azrak in the Toronto area. The OCP was trying to find out why so many fentanyl prescriptions were being issued and was conducting an audit on the inventory and management of narcotics.
At the same time, Greater Sudbury Police Service was investigating the activities of a known drug trafficker, Sean Holmes. Police learned that Holmes was being supplied by a man in the York Region, who was receiving his fentanyl supply from El-Azrak's pharmacy.
The transcript of the court of appeal case can be found here.
