The B.C. civil forfeiture director's long-running effort to seize the ill-gotten gains of now-slain gangster Joey Arrance could come to an end this Friday.
That's when the B.C. Supreme Court will consider an application from the director to take possession of nearly $220,000 worth of jewelry and cash it claims were proceeds of crime.
For a time, Arrance was a noted figure in organized crime in Prince George. He was shot to death in Coquitlam in late August.
In July 2012, the director began proceedings to seize $24,980 in cash and $245,422 in jewelry, adding up to $270,402. The total was subsequently reduced to $218,236, with a portion returned to Kirsten Sabrina Campbell-Fredin after it was claimed she was not Arrance's girlfriend but simply lived in the same house as her and her mother.
The director's application, filed Wednesday at the Vancouver Law Courts, states that in Sept. 19, 2010, Prince George RCMP executed a search warrant on the home, located in the 4300 block of Foster Road, where they seized the cash and a loaded handgun, hidden in a heating vent, along with a spare loaded magazine.
Subsequent investigations uncovered 34 items of jewelry from several locations including a safety deposit box. The director is now seeking control over 10 of those items, the priciest being a 174.3-gram 10-karat diamond pendant worth $42,610.
Other facts "deemed admitted by default" include a claim Arrance made 671 phone calls from Prince George Regional Correctional Centre, despite signs saying all calls are recorded, primarily to ensure "his drug trafficking organization continued without disruption."
Arrance was also recorded discussing the possibility of melting down some of the jewelry to make a larger piece for Campbell-Fredin, who assured him the jewelry continued to be safely stored away.
In July 2012, Arrance was personally served a copy of the director's notice of civil claim and he filed a response in November. But after that, Arrance missed a deadline to provide a list of documents and further attempts to serve him notice were without success.
In July this year, the director was given permission to place ads in The Province newspaper stating the proceeding will continue as Arrance had filed no response. He missed another deadline on Aug. 15, and on Aug. 27 he was "shot and killed in a targeted hit" in Coquitlam.
Prince George RCMP had identified Arrance as a junior member or "striker" with the Renegades Motorcycle Club, an affiliate of the Hells Angels and Game Tight Soldiers organized crime groups.
In November 2010, a tattoo parlor he owned in Prince George was gutted in a fire and less than 24 hours later, a fire broke out in the Foster Road home, killing Fredin-Campbell's wheelchair-bound mother. Police treated both fires as suspicious.
In May 2012, Arrance, who had been in custody since his September 2010 arrest, was sentenced to a further three-and-a-half months in jail and then banned from coming within 100 kilometres of Prince George for a further 18 months.
Arrance also faced a charge of sexually assaulting a woman at the Renegades clubhouse in July 2010. In November 2011, he was found not guilty of the offence following a trial before a provincial court judge.
