Father, son sentenced for drug trafficking in Winfield
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Updated: November 26, 2009 4:49 PM
The elder Giuseppe Lamelia flashed the peace sign to his son Guiseppe Alberto Lamelia as the older man walked into the prisoner's box at Kelowna Law Courts on Nov. 26.
Judge Mark Takahashi issued the elder Lamelia a concurrent sentence of 18 months in prison for three counts of trafficking cocaine and one count of possession for the purpose of trafficking.
Guiseppe Alberto was handed a nine month conditional sentence for two charges of marijuana trafficking and one of marijuana possession for the purpose of trafficking. The first four months of his conditional sentence are to be served under house arrest.
The 57-year-old Lamelia and his 20-year-old son were arrested for selling drugs out of Joe's Gas on Highway 97 north of Winfield. The gas station was owned by the elder Lamelia. Undercover police officers bought marijuana and cocaine from the pair on four separate occasions in the two months before their arrest.
Both men also received an order to provide their DNA to a national database, a 10-year prohibition on owning firearms and the forfeiture of all materials seized by police. When officers executed a search warrant at the gas station, they seized 10 ounces of cocaine, close to a pound of marijuana and drug trafficking paraphernalia.
Lake Country RCMP were already investigating the gas station after complaints of drugs being sold from the business.
Their investigation merged with another being run by Kelowna RCMP. The Kelowna undercover operation was initially intended to target street-level drug trafficking in the downtown but also examined dial-a-dope operations and people from outlying areas.
msimmons@kelownacapnews.com
