(ADAM PROSKIW / iNFOnews.ca)

A Kelowna man who began dealing drugs when he was a teenager will spend five years behind bars after police found roughly $20,000 of cocaine, along with fentanyl and $15,000 cash in his apartment.

According to a recently published May 30 BC Supreme Court decision, police raided Larome Angelo Sanchez's Kelowna condo and found him in bed with his girlfriend, Nalin Soreni, early in the morning in March 2017.

Police also found 232 grams of cocaine, 157 grams of heroin-fentanyl and $14,815 in cash, along with scoresheets, digital scales, a vacuum sealer, unused plastic baggies and brass knuckles.

A 2019 report on drugs would put the street value of the cocaine discovered at about $20,000.

RCMP arrested Sanchez, Soreni and a third individual, Arjean Hassani, and charged all three with possession for the purpose of trafficking.

In December 2019, Hassani was sentenced to almost two years in jail for one count of possessing cocaine for the purpose of trafficking.

Following the raid, Sanchez and Soreni were released on bail and more than six years after the drug bust appeared in court for sentencing. There is no mention in the court documents as to why it took so long to pass through the court system.

The decision says Sanchez was 21 years old at the time of the raid and is now 27.

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He was first convicted of drug dealing in 2017 and sentenced to six months in jail. He would have been a teenager at the time of the offence which happened two years early.

Court records show that since being arrested for drug dealing he's been convicted of driving while prohibited, and he also has a conviction for forcible entry.

Few details are given in the recently published decision, but it says Sanchez rented an apartment on Country Club Drive in Kelowna from November 2016 to March 2017.

Along with the drugs and cash police found a set up with all the hallmarks of a drug dealing operation.

"The amounts and packaging of cocaine and heroin-fentanyl present in the master bedroom, combined with the presence of cash, scales, and scoresheets, is consistent only with the possession of the cocaine and heroin-fentanyl for the purpose of trafficking," the decision said.

Crown and defence lawyers presented a joint submission asking for five jail time.

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BC Supreme Court Justice Gary Weatherill agreed.

"Mr. Sanchez, I wish you well. The time you are going to be serving in custody, I hope you have learned a lesson from this. I encourage you to take advantage of all the resources and the programs that will be available to you," the Justice said.  "I hope you will use your best efforts to be a model prisoner, and that, upon your release, which will come soon enough, you become a productive and law-abiding member of society. So good luck to you."

While Soreni was found in the apartment with Sanchez, and she had been on bail for several years, Crown prosecutors stayed all the charges against her.

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