Crown counsel is seeking four years in prison for a woman who operated a drug trafficking operation in Prince George while living in the Lower Mainland, relying on text messages and couriers to do the work in this city.
In building a case against Kristi Leigh Chamberlain, 35, the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit sifted through more than 23,000 text messages, the court heard during a sentencing hearing Tuesday.
They were intercepted from three cellphones Chamberlain used after the CFSEU obtained warrants compelling her service provider to hand over the messages she had sent and provide copies of any future messages on a weekly basis.
Most of the texts discussed Chamberlain parting ways with an old courier, bringing in a new one and trying to find a new "stash house" to store the drugs.
In March 2013, about three months after the CFSEU began its investigation, she was apprehended in Prince George while driving a van in which more than 200 grams of methamphetamine was found, along with two cellphones and cash.
A related search of a Conveyor Street home uncovered roughly a kilogram of narcotics that included cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin. In all, the value added up to as much as $116,000, the court heard.
Chamberlain grew up in Prince George but at the time of the investigation she was living in Burnaby where she held down a job as a flag person. She was described to the court as a "functional addict" who was able to remain employed despite addictions to methamphetamine and heroin.
She would smoke methamphetamine in the morning and then, later in the day, inhale heroin to "level off." She sold the drugs largely to support a $2,000 a week habit and to pay off a drug debt she had inherited from an old Prince George boyfriend who had gone missing and is presumed murdered and made little if any money from the transactions, the court was told.
One of Chamberlain's couriers, Christopher James Rawn, 35, was also arrested and charged with possession for the purpose of trafficking. But Chamberlain subsequently pleaded guilty to three counts and acknowledged she was the operation's principal and Rawn an employee.
It's expected the charges against Rawn will be stayed once Chamberlain is sentenced at a later date.
