Gary Hennessey told the court Monday that the stress of being in jail and being wrongfully named in the media as a member of the self-proclaimed Kings of Khaos contributed to his latest charges.
Hennessey, 33, pleaded guilty to threatening a correctional officer at Her Majesty’s Penitentiary (HMP) in April 2017, as well as assaulting one sheriff’s officer and threatening another while in provincial court last January.
“I should have thought about it, but you’ve got to understand the amount of stress I was under,” Hennessey told Judge Colin Flynn.
Hennessey has been in custody for the past 16 months, since he was arrested with three other men in connection with a series of violent home invasions in C.B.S., Mount Pearl and St. John’s in February of last year. Hennessey was recently acquitted of all charges related to those incidents.
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Last November, while making a court appearance in St. John’s, Hennessey threatened a female sheriff. He pleaded guilty to that charge and was sentenced in January to 75 days in jail. Upon being escorted back to the holding cells, Hennessey saw the same sheriff and gestured toward 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 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 and he wanted them to take it out. Officers found two playing cards, including the ace of spades, sometimes called the “death card.” Hennessey told the sheriffs that 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.”
Crown prosecutor Chris McCarthy told the court Monday the officer was visibly shaken and deeply disturbed by the incident.
The incident at HMP happened 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 a particular male officer, saying the officer had “made it personal,” and added he “wouldn’t mind doing time for (the officer).” A number of correctional officers told the police they believed Hennessey was capable of carrying out his threats or had friends capable of doing it for him.
In his address to the court, Hennessey spoke in particular of the spitting incident, saying, “I acted in the moment and I spit towards him. I take full responsibility for it, but it was nothing more than a spur-of-the-moment thing. I’m well aware that (the officers) are just doing their job and I’m just doing mine.”
Hennessey was one of six inmates charged last summer with a brutal assault on another, but the charges were later dropped due to a lack of evidence. The six men were alleged to be members of a self-titled prison group called the Kings of Khaos.
“The very next day in court, I was slandered all over the media, on Facebook, in the papers, as this Kings of Khaos gang member, which is so bogus, so disgustingly wrong, and it’s affected me in so many ways,” Hennessey said, adding he was “highly offended” by the label.
He said he spat on the sheriff after the sheriff made a comment to him about being a member of the group.
Hennessey spoke of being placed in segregation at HMP with no recreation time and no programming. Every time he tried to reach out for help, no one took him seriously, he said.
“If it’s punishment that you’re seeking, let me tell you, you’ve got it in so many ways, unimaginably, indescribably,” he said in court. “I’ve been punished mentally, physically, torn down and beat down in the worst kind of ways.”
Hennessey said his relationship with one of his children has suffered as a result of his extended jail sentence, and he has not been able to see a close family member who is ill. He later said he plans to leave the province as soon as he is released.
“My plan is to hop on a plane and move away with my fiancée and never move back to Newfoundland,” he said.
McCarthy is looking for a total jail sentence of about 3 ½ years for Hennessey, pointing out his 37-page criminal record, which includes multiple convictions for uttering threats.
“Every day we come to work and we depend on the sheriff’s officers and the HMP officers to keep us safe, yet Mr. Hennessey believes, time and time again, that this is the way to go,” McCarthy said.
Hennessey’s lawyer, Stephen Orr, argued for a sentence of time served and submitted a letter from a Nova Scotia business offering Hennessey employment. Hennessey has spent 407 days on remand, Orr said, which equals 611 days if he is given the usual time-and-a-half credit.
“It is a serious offence and Mr. Hennessey realizes that,” Orr told the judge, insisting the Crown’s suggestion was “much too high.”
Flynn will deliver his sentencing decision Tuesday morning.
Twitter: @tara_bradbury
