A Prince George woman has failed in her bid to have a conviction for possession of cocaine overturned in relation to an arrest at what was a notorious drug house at the time.
Cynthia Mae Hildebrandt was taken into custody in November 2015 after an RCMP officer was called to the 1800-block Spruce Street home to retrieve a youth who went missing from a local group home.
The officer learned Hildebrandt was not to be in contact with the youth, who is her son, and returned to the home and arrested her without incident. Hildebrandt also asked police to retrieve her purse from the home, which they did.
When Hildebrandt's purse was searched at the Prince George RCMP detachment, police found 11 packages of cocaine in an inner side pocket as well as a wallet containing $2,250 in $100 and $50 bills and another wallet containing three cellphones and two cheques payable to other people.
Hildebrandt spent the next 20 days in custody before she was released. In April 2016, Prince George provincial court judge Michael Gray found her guilty of possession of a controlled substance and sentenced her to 30 days house arrest.
Hildebrandt applied to B.C. Supreme Court to have the verdict dismissed, arguing Gray did not give her testimony during the trial fair consideration.
Hildrebrandt had testified she did not know the drugs were in her purse and contended someone else must have planted them there. She also argued she would not have asked police to retrieve her purse had she known the cocaine was in it.
But in a decision issued in mid-April and released this week, Justice Ron Tindale sided with Gray and his decision to reject Hildebrandt's explanation.
Her story that the cash came from her landlord left Gray skeptical, noting no receipt was presented to the court. Gray also found it "somewhat dubious" that in a home occupied by addicts, someone would put the drugs in her purse. Rather, he found Hildebrandt was more worried someone would take the drugs from the purse after she had left.
Tindale found Gray "clearly considered the totality of the evidence" and made an assessment of HIldebrandt's credibility as he is entitled to do in finding the Crown had proven its case beyond reasonable doubt.
The home had been on the RCMP's radar for some time. In August 2015, they arrested 13 people - including two teenagers - and seized a variety of illicit drugs from the home. Then, about two weeks after Hildebrandt's arrest, RCMP were once again called to the home, this time to deal with a report of a woman being threatened with a firearm.
RCMP said they subsequently found thousands of needles and arrested 14 people, all adults.
The suspected gun-wielder, Michael Junior Aslin, was arrested a week later but charges against him were stayed in March 2016 as were firearms charges against Douglas Wayne Joseph.
No calls to the home have been reported by the RCMP since November 2015.
