A Kamloops man who was busted with a loaded handgun after showing the weapon off to an employee at a North Kamloops hotel has been ordered to spend four years in a federal penitentiary.
Dusty Rintoul was sentenced on Thursday (Dec. 3) after earlier pleading guilty to charges of possession of a firearm while prohibited and possession of a prohibited weapon.
Court heard the 35-year-old walked into the manager’s officer at Northbridge Hotel and Suites, in the 300-block of Tranquille Rd., at about 5:30 p.m. on Dec. 19, 2019, telling the employee he’d “acquired some new toys.”
Rintoul unzipped his jacket and pulled a black handgun out of a satchel, then inquired about renting a room. The employee called police after Rintoul left.
About 90 minutes later, Mounties spotted Rintoul at the McDonald’s restaurant on Fortune Drive, where he was arrested. A subsequent search turned up a small amount of drugs and a loaded .22-calibre pistol, which had been reported stolen months earlier in Alberta.
Rintoul has been in custody since his arrest. Defence lawyer John Gustafson asked B.C. Supreme Court Justice Dev Dley to weigh the difficulty of spending the COVID-19 pandemic behind bars while sentencing Rintoul.
“The court ought to consider the effect of COVID on inmates,” he said. “It’s a fact a pandemic of this type is harder on inmates than the greater population. This leads to increased fear and lesser access to programming.”
Gustafson said Rintoul had a “very turbulent upbringing,” but has used his time behind bars in recent months to obtain his GED.
In addition to the four-year prison sentence, Dley also ordered Rintoul to submit a sample of his DNA to a national criminal database. After being given credit for time served, Rintoul has about two-and-a-half years to spend in federal custody.
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