A Penticton man serving a five-year jail sentence had another 19-and-a-half months added onto the time he'll be behind bars for possession of fentanyl and methamphetamines. 

Marshall Wilson Hunter, 44, was sentenced on March 28 in Penticton Supreme Court for two counts of possession for the purpose of trafficking, according to a judgment published on April 24.

Hunter appeared via video from his current residence in federal custody in Abbotsford, where he was serving out a five-year sentence related to an unrelated charge possession of a prohibited or restricted firearm with ammunition from 2022 in 琉璃神社. 

The charges he was most recently found guilty of came after police were called by BC Emergency Health Services to assist with a report of two people unresponsive in a truck on Green Mountain Road on Oct. 1, 2020. 

While they were en route to the call, they pulled over another truck due to having what they suspected was an illegal light bar. During the road stop, the officers found baggies of drugs in a satchel on the backseat. 

On top of the $10,000 worth of fentanyl and methamphetamine that was seized, a search of Hunter also found a bundle of $7,380 in cash in his jacket pocket, and several weapons in the truck including a pellet gun designed to look like a real long gun next to the satchel of drugs. 

After a three-day trial in 2024, Justice John Gibb-Carsley found Hunter guilty of possession for the purpose of trafficking, based on the amount of drugs, the large amount of cash, and the weapons. 

Hunter has 45 previous criminal convictions, including five previous convictions for drug trafficking, stretching from 1999 to 2023. 

Crown prosecution was seeking a three-year jail sentence, reduced to two-and-a-half years after taking into account the five-year sentence he is already serving. 

The Justice noted that none of the previous trafficking charges had involved fentanyl, and the most recent previous trafficking charge had been for an incident in 2018, and the next one before that took place in 2005. 

Further mitigating factors include the strides that Hunter has made towards rehabilitation in the 1,100 days he has so far spent in custody, including using his welding experience to fix military vehicles and trailers, something he is taking pride in. 

In the end, the Justice gave Hunter a sentence of just over the 18-month bottom of the range for first-time fentanyl dealers, of 19-and-a-half months or 585 days in jail. 

"It is my sincere hope that you remain on what appears to be the positive path you find yourself on and that this is your last interaction with the criminal justice system," Justice Gibb-Carsley said. "As you said when I asked you for submissions, you need to 鈥済et your stuff together鈥� when you are released. Again, I hope and trust that you will use all of the supports you can in order to do just that and use the potential you have."

No probation order will follow Hunter's sentence, and he had a 10-year firearm prohibition for this charge on top of a previous lifetime ban.