TRURO - A Debert scrap yard owner was an experienced "magnet" for stolen property, not simply someone who made a one-time judgment error, a sentencing judge said yesterday.
"Mr. (Robert) Pash's conduct has been characterized as unsophisticated," provincial court Judge Del Atwood said, while imposing an 18-month conditional sentence.
"The court does not accept that proposition. The evidence before the court portrays Mr. Pash as being at the centre of a web."
Atwood described Pash as the "focal point" for a significant quantity of stolen property, including a diesel truck engine and transmission, furniture and the trailer the furniture was being transported in, as well as a quantity of lumber.
"The hallmarks of this enterprise are hallmarks of practice and experience. The court draws the inevitable, common-sense inference that the reason was that Mr. Pash was a magnet for stolen property ..."
Pash, 63, pleaded guilty in May to possessing $45,000 in furniture stolen last year from a New Brunswick manufacturer; the $10,000 trailer the items were being transported in; a diesel engine and transmission (valued at $7,800), stolen from the Halifax area and $3,000 in lumber stolen from Marwood Lumber Ltd., of Brookfield.
In addition to the 18-month conditional sentence, which includes 12 month's of full house arrest, Pash was also fined $11,500.
Atwood said Pash was known as "someone who was prepared to receive stolen goods," that the property was of "significant value" and when received by Pash, it was "secreted" away in multiple locations to avoid detection.
Stolen items were found in Pash's home, at his auto salvage business, in his camp and also at the property of a neighbour, Timothy Alexander.
Alexander was recently sentenced to nine-month's probation and placed on a conditional discharge after pleading guilty to possessing stolen property.
That involvement was described by Atwood in his sentencing decision as an aggravating factor against Pash.
"The destruction and concealment of evidence (the trailer) ... is another factor that satisfies the court that these were offences of practice and experience," he said. "A further aggravating factor is that Mr. Pash duped a friend, Mr. Alexander, to allow his property to be used as a place of storage for merchandise (the furniture) that had been stolen from C.A. Munro.
Other mitigating factors, that perhaps saved Pash from serving real jail time, however, were that he fully co-operated with police from the outset of their investigation – to the point of showing them where all the stolen items were stored – that he had issued public apologies (in this newspaper and on national television) of his actions before going to court and because he had voluntarily made full restitution of all the stolen property, despite the fact the court could not order him to do so.
And Atwood said there is now little chance that Pash would re-offend.
"The community is entitled to be safe from thieves and those who facilitate that activity," Atwood said. "The fact of the matter is, the degree of notoriety that has been attracted to this particular case, because of Mr. Pash's very public apology in the national media ... there is no one who would touch Mr. Pash with a 10-foot pole, seeking to have stolen property fenced in the province of Nova Scotia."
A third co-accused, John George Murray, of Londonderry is to be sentenced next Wednesday on a charge of possessing stolen property.
