HARBOUR GRACE, NL — A 20-year-old Carbonear man who pleaded guilty to charges related to drug trafficking and weapons has upwards of three years in jail to contemplate the choices in life he’s made.
After sentencing Mateo Brewer to three years in federal prison on Friday, May 4, Judge Bruce Short encouraged him to make the best of his time in jail and consider his priorities ahead of his eventual release.
“Mr. Brewer, when it becomes important enough to you to look at your time and passage of time — because you’re going to lose some of your time in this sentence, and that’s something you’re never, never going to get back — (and) when you get released, you need to look at every single day that you have … and you have to value that tremendously,” Short said to Brewer, who was present in court. “You have to value yourself tremendously. And if you do that, you have a much better chance of making better decisions for yourself.”
Brewer was arrested Jan. 8 after police executed a search warrant at a home on Long’s Hill in Carbonear. There, Harbour Grace RCMP seized over 100 grams of cocaine and 20 grams of crack cocaine, along with 340 grams of cannabis, drug paraphernalia and cash. Police also seized two guns, one of which was a sawed-off shotgun, and ammunition.
Short’s sentence for Brewer was based on a joint submission from Crown and defence lawyers. John Hartery, representing Brewer, suggested his client has been troubled for a number of years.
Hartery said drug addiction has been at the root of Brewer’s problems, derailing at one point a situation in which he had steady employment and was able to support himself financially, despite only being a teenager at the time. Brewer went through a treatment program at one point, but he relapsed upon completion.
“Mr. Brewer, I will say to you that you are very young, you have a whole lot of your life ahead of you, you have lots of time to fix things,” the judge said.
Charges against Brewer for uttering threats stemming from an unrelated matter were dropped on Friday in court.
Austin Keels, Brewer’s alleged accomplice, faces charges of possessing cocaine for the purpose of trafficking and possessing marijuana for the purpose of trafficking.
He appeared by videolink Friday afternoon from Her Majesty’s Penitentiary in St. John’s, and his case was set over to May 10. Federal Crown prosecutor Don Singleton indicated to the court it’s possible Keels’ case will get dealt with by speedy disposition at that time.
