Millbrook’s Alex Cope, seen here during his first court appearance in February, was sentenced to two years house arrest yesterday after pleading guilty to numerous drug and firearm offences. File photo

TRURO – Millbrook’s band manager has been sentenced to two years house arrest after pleading guilty to numerous drug and weapons possession charges.
Alex Cope, 45, of 780 Willow St., must also serve three years probation (following his house arrest) and make an immediate $7,500 donation to the Millbrook Community Youth Centre. He was also fined $2,000 in victim surcharge fees.
As well, Cope is banned from possessing or owning firearms and other weapons for life, must submit a DNA sample and must have no contact with known criminals, except family members or through incidental contact at his place of employment.
His common-law spouse, Nicole Williams, 31, was convicted of careless storage of a restricted weapon (a .45 calibre handgun) and possession of marijuana. She received a suspended sentence and six months probation.
Cope and Williams were charged last February after RCMP conducted a search warrant on their residence for unregistered firearms. A total of 12 rifles and four handguns, more than 400 grams (nearly a pound) of marijuana and various items used for growing and cultivating the drug were discovered during the search.
Particularly troubling for Judge John MacDougall was the fact that none of the firearms had trigger locks nor were they otherwise secured and some were found loaded or with ammunition readily available.
MacDougall also questioned the coincidental factor of that combination. And whether or not the guns were on hand to protect Cope’s marijuana grow operation, “they are connected to the activity,” he said.
“The connection between drugs and firearms is something that repeats itself in court time and time again. It is more than one could suggest is coincidence,” MacDougall said, especially given the sophistication of  Cope’s “agricultural” operation “... in a community that has suffered more than its share of hardship because of drugs and violence and, in particular, firearms. I can think of three shootings over the last number of years myself that have taken place in that community involving young people.”
MacDougall described Cope’s activities outside of his professional career as a “cold dose of reality” and said while the band manager had appeared in court as a responsible member of the community on a number of occasions in recent years on behalf of young Millbrook people he “won’t be (doing so) again.”
And while Cope will be permitted to work during his house arrest, he is not to leave the province nor conduct errands on behalf of the band without prior permission from his probation supervisor. To let him do otherwise, the judge said, would serve as a “mockery” of the sentence.
Both Cope and Williams had been scheduled for a preliminary inquiry on Thursday in advance of a Supreme Court trial but elected to enter guilty pleas as part of a plea bargain with the Crown.
Both had been facing the same number of joint charges. However, charges of possessing marijuana for the purpose of trafficking were withdrawn against the pair while the firearms charges that Cope pled guilty to were withdrawn against Williams.
However, MacDougall did not accept a recommendation from her defence lawyer, David Mahoney, for a conditional discharge, in part because of the fact that loaded weapons were found in the home where young children were present.
One firearm, found in the master bedroom, was a .45 caliber handgun that had a bullet in the chamber. That gun was described by Crown attorney Rick Hartlen as something similar to what John Wayne used in his movies. The fact that the bullet was stuck in the chamber and could not be fired did not give MacDougall much comfort, simply because it is “the type of item that would attract the attention of a young person wanting to play around with it to see if it works or not (because it looks like something that John Wayne or other Hollywood cowboys may have used).”
“Guess what happens? Someone gets shot,” he said.
And while it may have been beneficial to Williams for her to have a discharge, MacDougall said, leaving a revolver, or having someone else leave a revolver in a bedroom where young, inquisitive children are present, “in my opinion doesn’t merit a discharge.”