In Vancouver Supreme Court last week, Justice Stewart gave Dusty Dickeson a stiff sentence for trafficking cocaine. The 23-year-old Halfmoon Bay man, whose earlier claim to fame was that he seduced his high school teacher at the age of 17, has been in jail since May 2004, when he was arrested for breaking his bail conditions, driving while prohibited and possessing a small amount of marijuana.
In court Oct. 21, Dickeson acted contrite, saying he had learned his lesson and wanted to change his ways. But Justice Stewart did not believe that remorse was genuine, commenting that Dickeson had "lied to me from the witness stand."
Stewart sentenced Dickeson to 12 months for possessing cocaine for the purpose of trafficking and one month for obstructing a police officer, in addition to the six months he had already served, for a total sentence of 19 months in jail.
The charges date from Nov. 2003, when police caught Dickeson in a taxi in downtown Sechelt with nine grams of cocaine, both crack and powder, hidden in the false bottom of a can of WD-40. The cocaine was packaged, as if for sale, in 34 individual "decks." Earlier that night police had approached a group of young people in Hackett Park and saw Dickeson hide the WD-40 can at the base of a tree. When police picked up the can, Dickeson grabbed it from an officer's hand and ran.
At the time, Dickeson was on probation for assault causing bodily harm. Dickeson is still awaiting trial on weapons charges for allegedly firing a sawed-off shotgun a few weeks after he was arrested with the cocaine.
Dickeson got international media attention in 2000 when his former accounting teacher, Heather Ingram, was convicted of sexually exploiting him. Ingram lost her teaching certification and wrote a tell-all book about the affair, which she has been promoting on major U.S. talk shows. The couple continued their on-again, off-again relationship, and last November Ingram gave birth to Dickeson's son.
- With files from John Daly, Global TV
