Richmond News - February 16, 2011

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Louder Than Love

Basketball playoffs

The young rock ‘n’ rollers took any gig they could, and it’s paid off. They’ve gotten airplay on key stations, and the McRoberts boys are ready to give back.

RC Palmer Griffins and McNair Marlins are the respective teams to beat as the Richmond senior boys and girls basketball championships take place this week.

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Olympic athletes Denny Morrison and Alexa Loo, along with former Vanoc CEO John Furlong, take a look at Richmond’s Olympic Journey, a book that tells the story of the community’s participation in the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, at Winterfest Weekend on Saturday at the oval. At right, children have some fun making silly faces at the Richmond News festival booth. For more pictures of the event, go to www.richmond-news.com, where you’ll find two galleries, one capturing many of the events, the other, just your funny faces at the booth.

COURT

Armstrong fined $30,000 but avoids jail time

Paralympic curler placed on supervised release for year, son sentenced to a year in prison for smuggling drugs Disgraced Paralympic wheelchair curler Jim Armstrong has avoided going to jail after being sentenced for his part in a father and son fake Viagra smuggling scheme. Armstrong, 59, — who won gold as Canada’s skip in last year’s Paralympic Games — was fined $30,000 and placed on supervised release for a year when he appeared Monday in a Seattle courtroom. His son, Gregory, 28, who lived with $

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his father in the family’s $1.6 million Richmond home, was jailed for a year and a day. Both admitted last year to smuggling around $45,000 worth of fake Viagra and Cialis — erectile dysfunction drugs — from India and China via the U.S. For three years, Armstrong senior would drive over the border and pick up the packages addressed to his late wife, Carleen, from a mailbox. His son, who was thrown out of UBC as a student after the charges came to light last spring, would then sell the pills at $15 each in Vancouver area nightclubs.

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But less than a month after grabbing gold in the Paralympics last March, Armstrong was intercepted at the Blaine mailbox by U.S. Customs officers, who had been tracking the package since it arrived in Los Angeles. Sentencing Armstrong senior, U.S. District Judge Ricardo Martinez told the retired dentist that he’d seriously considered jailing him. “You are a trained medical professional ... you knew better, (than to provide counterfeit drugs).” He told Armstrong that he was less to

blame in all of this than his son, hence his more lenient sentence. Armstrong junior was not so fortunate. He was sentenced to a year and a day in prison, two years of supervised release and a $5,000 fine. The judge told him that he put people, “at physical risk of harm ... You put them at risk of death.” It’s not yet all over for the Armstrongs, as they’ll have to return to the same court on April 12, when the judge will determine

8171 Westminster Hwy. (at Buswell, one block east of No. 3 Rd.) Walkway access also from Save-On Foods parking lot

Mon-Sat 8:45-6:30 Sun 10-5 (604) 780-4959

see Armstrong page 4 07283111

BY ALAN CAMPBELL

acampbell@richmond-news.com


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