• frezik@midwest.social
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    11 months ago

    The guy was clearly mentally unstable after he left prison. He never would have done that in the first place otherwise. And he effectively did get a death sentence for it.

    • ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one
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      11 months ago

      According to the article titled ‘Ballarat Bandit’ lost to family for years, August 4, 2006 for Pahrump Valley Times, Johnston was living in Canada when they were arrested and charged with trafficking marijuana.

      Eventually, the couple left Anarchist Mountain and returned to Prince Edward Island, where Rob Johnston had been born and raised. After the birth of her fourth child, Tommi was diagnosed with leukemia and access to medical care became vital. Johnston began cultivating marijuana, discovered he had a knack for it and turned it into a cash crop.

      In 1997, when the crop was discovered by Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Johnston was sentenced to two consecutive four-year prison terms. It was then that the couple was legally married, in what Tommi described as an ultimately futile effort on her part to convince him that she would not abandon him.

      Edit: HTML linking