Nice little tag line at the end of the article. I don't think any of us will like where that is taking us.
Posted on 02/25/2010 8:55:58 AM PST by Clive
SARNIA, Ont. -- A Texas man driving to New York with $33,000 worth of marijuana was sentenced to two years in jail after his GPS directed him over the border and into Canada.
Jesus Fontanez-Medina, 54, pleaded guilty in Sarnia court Tuesday to importing marijuana.
He was driving a 1999 Blazer with Massachusetts licence plates on Feb. 7 when he entered Canada with a passenger at 5 p.m.
Federal prosecutor Michael Robb said outside the courtroom that a GPS navigational system in the vehicle apparently led him to the border.
The passenger, charged with a similar offence, is still before the courts.
A secondary inspection revealed 3.3 kilograms of marijuana in a box in the vehicle's rear end. The packages were wrapped in bleach-soaked material to prevent drug-sniffing dogs from detecting the marijuana, Robb said.
Through a Spanish interpreter, Fontanez-Medina asked Justice Mark Hornblower to treat him well.
"People intent on importing substances are not welcome here, and when detected will be dealt with severely," Hornblower replied.
A lack of background information about Fontanez-Medina, who reportedly has a criminal record in the U.S., didn't change the need for a two-year prison sentence, the judge said.
Two years was a recommended joint submission by Robb and defence lawyer David Stoesser.
"In due course, he will be deported," Stoesser said.
The federal jail system can consider sending Fontanez-Medina home to serve the sentence.
He will be under a lifetime weapons ban in Canada and must provide local police with a DNA sample.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnews.canoe.ca ...
-
Dumb ass. Couldn’t read the street signs huh?
Our Canadian friends can keep him. I'm willing to bet he isn't legally in the United States either.
Jesus says: “Dios mio! Que pasa?”
....and who are the guys in the red jackets and funny pants?
You’d be amazed how many people blindly follow GPS systems. On a divided highway near our plant, there is a giant exit posted with our street name. at least 2-3 times per week, I get a call from some delivery driver wanting directions because he passed right by it because his GPS system was telling him to do so.
LOL—why is there brown gravy on my fries?
Options>Settings>Route Settings>Warn of Border Crossings?>Yes>Done
Once out of the desert here in Texas, all those trees can get confusing, they all look the same......as you said, Dumb Ass.
headline should read:
“Incredibly bright Drug smuggler busted by GPS error [GPS routed him into Canada]”
The GPS may not be entirely to blame. The quickest route from either Detroit or Flint to upstate New York or Vermont is Highway 401 acrosss Ontario with a branch to the Queen Elizabeth Way for Buffalo or to the Thousand Islands bridge for Syracuse or Vermont.
Nice little tag line at the end of the article. I don't think any of us will like where that is taking us.
The link to the original story wouldn’t load. But note this line from the post:
“The federal jail system can consider sending Fontanez-Medina home to serve the sentence.”
Which really raises the question - where is his home? He is referred to as a “Texas man”, but we know there is a not insubstantial chance that a Texas resident may be an illegal immigrant. So, is Canada willing to let him serve in Mexico?
In general, I've found that a few minutes spent studying a highway map prior to a trip to an unfamiliar location pays off many times in gas and time saved getting there.
I've read that the Michigan,Ohio and Pennsylvania legislatures are trying to force GPS makers to change that because it denies the armed tax collectors of their state police forces the opportunity to get some "quality" stops. ;-)
GPS’s take you through the skanky section of town, every time, without fail.
There ought to be an option to avoid them, just like avoiding highways.
Mine can be programmed to give the shortest distance or the quickest trip.It can also be programmed to avoid toll roads.I don't know if it can be programmed to avoid national borders but if it can it must default to "don't avoid borders" because of what I described above.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.