Gary Hennessey walked out of provincial court in St. John’s a free man Tuesday, for the first time in 16 months.
Arrested in February 2017 in connection with a series of violent home invasions – and later acquitted of those charges – Hennessey had been in custody waiting to be sentenced on unrelated charges of threatening and assaulting sheriff’s officers and threatening a correctional officer. Tuesday morning, Judge Colin Flynn sentenced him to time served for those charges, and Hennessey was free within the hour.
The 33-year-old told the court at his sentencing hearing Monday he planned to hop on a plane as soon as he was released and move away from the province with his fiancée, never looking back.
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Last November, while making a court appearance, Hennessey threatened a female sheriff. He later pleaded guilty to that charge and was handed a 75-day jail term. As he was being escorted back to the holding cells in Atlantic Place, Hennessey saw the same sheriff and gestured towards her. When the male sheriff escorting him told him to keep moving and attempted to turn him in another direction, Hennessey attempted to sweep the male officer’s leg out from under him. The court was told the officer pushed him away and Hennessey pushed back before spitting in the officer’s eye.
In the cells, Hennessey told sheriff’s officers he had a gift in his back pocket: two playing cards, including the ace of spades, which prosecutor Chris McCarthy said is sometimes referred to as the “death card.” Hennessey told the sheriffs the card was for the female officer he had previously threatened, calling her an insulting name and saying, “If she wants to play, she’s going to have to play the hand she’s dealt.”
McCarthy said the officer was visibly shaken and deeply disturbed by the incident.
The incident at HMP happened in April 2017 after Hennessey and another inmate refused to go back to their cells after a disturbance on a particular unit. He threatened to beat up the cell, threw toilet water at the door and told correctional officers he would fight them if they tried to move him. He threatened the life of one male officer in particular, saying the officer had “made it personal.”
When given the chance to address the court Monday, Hennessey apologized for the incidents, and said spitting at the sheriff was “nothing more than a spur-of-the-moment thing.” He spoke of being under stress in prison and not being taken seriously when he asked for help.
Flynn sentenced Hennessey to 355 days in prison for the two incidents, saying the spitting may have been spontaneous, but the threat with the playing cards was not.
“It was what I would call very insidious and subtle in nature,” Flynn said of the threat.
Flynn said he recognized the difficulties some inmates have in adapting to prison.
“However,” he said, “threats and attempts at intimidation are not helpful and will initiate a response from authorities to the threat, as they must do. The same goes for the sheriff’s officers — they do their jobs and they need to be protected by the courts.
“Offences in an institutional setting require condemnation by the court.”
Flynn noted Hennessey has a number of prior convictions for uttering threats.
With credit given for the time Hennessey has spent on remand, his 355 days have been served and he was released after court was adjourned.
Twitter: @tara_bradbury
