Dakota Cole's first brushes with the law landed him behind bars for eight months.
The 31-year-old was sentenced to the jail term Tuesday after pleading guilty to nine offences, two of which involved weapons.
On Oct.16, 2022, city police encountered Cole when officers responded to a call about two people asleep in a running vehicle on Peoples Road.
They found a woman behind the wheel and the accused in the passenger seat, Ontario Court Justice John Condon heard.
The pair was passed out and the lights were on.
A glass pipe with suspected drug residue was on the console and another one was on the back seat, prosecutor Adrianna Mucciarelli said.
When the Batchewana First Nation man was arrested, the cops found a firearm tucked in the waistband of his pants.
It was a handgun-style BB gun — "a handgun per se," she told Condon.
Cole pleaded guilty to carrying a concealed weapon in connection with the incident.
He also was convicted of obstructing police by providing a false name in another incident that occurred on the same date.
On Jan. 8 of this year, he was nabbed as he ran out of a vacant house in the 300 block of Pim Street.
Police were contacted about a break-in underway at the boarded-up residence.
The cops followed tracks in the snow entering the building, and caught up with the accused when someone yelled that a person was coming out of the basement.
"He had something silver in his hand," the assistant Crown attorney said.
Cole had a knife in his right pocket, drug paraphernalia and multiple break-in tools in a backpack.
He pleaded guilty to break and enter to commit an indictable offence, breaching an undertaking by possessing numerous weapons and possession of instruments suitable to be used in break-ins.
The accused also admitted he had missed court dates on four occasions between January 2023 and January of this year.
Mucciarelli and defence lawyer Ken Walker called for eight months jail, less credit for the time Cole has spent in pre-sentence custody, followed by two years probation.
The Crown noted the many aggravating circumstances, but Cole also has no prior criminal record and his pleas indicate remorse.
Walker said there are many Gladue factors in his client's background.
Cole also has an opiate addiction, in particular fentanyl, he told Condon.
When he imposed the sentence, the judge said he was taking all this into consideration.
"You managed to stay out of the criminal justice system until 2022," and then developed a substance abuse problem, the judge told Cole.
"Custody is warranted for your behaviour for the past year plus."
With the enhanced credit of 1.5 days he received for each day he's already spent in jail, Cole faces a further 73 days in custody.
During his probation, he must take any recommended assessments, counselling and rehabilitative programs for substance abuse, which the judge said "hopefully will assist you in dealing with your fentanyl problem."
Condon also imposed a 10-year weapons prohibition and ordered Cole to provide a DNA sample for the national database.
"For a first offender you got yourself in a lot of trouble, and like many you are suffering from fentanyl abuse," he told Cole, urging him to take advantage of the counselling.