Trauma, alcoholism led to night-club stabbings - defence
Defence counsel for Shawn Patrick Sacobie, 35, of Oromocto, says childhood immersed in violence and abuse is root cause of his addiction and anger issues
The sentencing hearing of Shawn Patrick Sacobie, 35, of Welamukotuk (Oromocto) First Nation, became a Tale of Two Defendants.
The prosecution painted a picture of a belligerent boozer who swung a knife wildly after being kicked out of a bar, stabbing one bouncer in the gut and slashing two other men.
But the defence offered a profile of a man who suffered horrific neglect and abuse as a child that gave rise to alcoholism and rage that’s been largely under control in recent years thanks to a positive, long-term relationship with his spouse.
Sacobie appeared in custody and in person before Fredericton provincial court Judge Cameron Gunn on Thursday for sentencing submissions.
He pleaded guilty early last month to an aggravated assault on Cody Leblanc, two assaults with a weapon on Jason Ferris and Eric Pryor, and a threat to Fredericton police Const. Matt Bujold.
The charges arose after a violent confrontation outside the Twenty/20 Club in downtown Fredericton in the early-morning hours of March 4.
Crown prosecutor Kathleen Jacobs said the crimes were sparked by an incident inside the bar that morning when a patron alerted staff of a problem.
“Somebody reported to a bouncer, Cody LeBlanc, that there were two males fighting in the bathroom,” she said.
LeBlanc went in to break it up, court heard, and Sacobie was one of the men involved in the fight.
“Mr. Sacobie was very resistant to Mr. LeBlanc’s efforts to get him to leave [the club],” the prosecutor said, adding he ultimately was successful in ejecting the defendant from the premises.
“Once outside, Mr. Sacobie pulled out a knife and started swinging it.”
He stabbed LeBlanc in the upper right abdomen, she said, and slashed Ferris and Pryor, who’d been trying to help LeBlanc.
Ferris sustained a cut that required stitches, Jacobs said, while LeBlanc had to undergo surgery.
Gunn asked if the Crown had any medical records to introduce as evidence, noting that for a charge of aggravated assault to be borne out, the victim’s life would have to have been in danger.
“The injury was life-threatening,” the prosecutor said, but she had no medical records to share with the court.
However, defence lawyer T.J. Burke conceded the stabbing was a life-threatening assault, given the location of the wound.
Jacobs also said once police officers arrived and arrested Sacobie, he was still aggressive.
“He made a threat to Const. Matt Bujold that he could also stab him,” she said.
When the judge asked Sacobie if he accepted that what the Crown described is what happened, the offender couldn’t confirm it.
“I don’t remember nothing that night,” he told the court.
“So you don’t contest the facts,” Gunn said, and Sacobie agreed.
Not his first trip through the system
Jacobs filed a copy of Sacobie’s criminal record with the court, pointing to prior assaults, threats and an earlier conviction for aggravated assault.
“There is a history of violence,” she said. “There were numerous people who were endangered by Mr. Sacobie’s actions.”
Court heard Sacobie had served time in federal prison before.
Those were aggravating factors for the court to consider, the prosecutor said, though she acknowledged there were mitigating factors as well, such as the offender’s guilty pleas, a significant gap in the criminal record, and a number of historic, systemic abuses of Indigenous people that affected Sacobie’s family members and him by extension.
Jacobs recommended a prison sentence of 42-48 months, less credit for time served on remand.
Burke asked the court to consider a 30-month stint in prison instead, again reduced to account for remand time.
He acknowledged his client’s criminal record, but he urged Gunn to consider the broader context of what gave rise to that record and to Sacobie’s actions on the night in question.
‘A community plagued by violence, alcohol and drugs’
“Oromocto First Nation is a very small community, and unfortunately, it’s a community that’s plagued by violence, alcohol and drugs,” the defence lawyer said.
That was true when Sacobie was a child on the reserve as well, he said, noting his client’s mother was an alcoholic.
As a kid, Burke said, Sacobie was immersed in alcohol and violence. He grew up in an area of the First Nation known as “Battle Street,” court heard, so named for the frequent violence that would occur there.
The offender’s mother would go on benders, the defence lawyer said, and Sacobie as a young child would wander through the community looking for her.
His client’s mother introduced her son to sex at the age of only seven, he said, and he tried to hang himself when he was 11.
Sacobie essentially became desensitized to alcohol and violence, Burke said.
“He only knew rage and anger,” he said, noting that anger and alcohol abuse became his client’s coping mechanisms in life.
That all changed after he did his time in prison and met his current spouse, Ashley Young, when he got out, Burke said, and that explains why Sacobie has stayed out of trouble for the past decade or so.
He was living the dream - a nice home, a loving family, a new truck - and he was contributing positively to his community, the lawyer said.
But more recently, he started drinking and bit and it got worse, Burke said, noting that when Sacobie drinks, he binges.
“Unfortunately, for Mr. Sacobie, his coping mechanism tends to lead to violence,” he said.
That background isn’t an excuse for what Sacobie did at the Twenty/20 Club four months ago, Burke said, but it should be considered in mitigation.
“He’s remorseful for those actions,” he said.
The defence lawyer filed precedents with the court that support his position on sentencing.
“I just really wish that I never went out that night,” Sacobie told the court Thursday.
“I just really want to be home with my family. I messed up hard.”
He apologized for his actions.
Given the difference in the Crown and defence’s submissions on sentence and the need to review the case law Burke had submitted, Gunn reserved his decision to July 6 and remanded Sacobie again until that time.
Don MacPherson can be contacted at ftonindependent@gmail.com.
Everyone has a sob story.