(STAFF / iNFOnews.ca)

KAMLOOPS — At 25 years old Jonathan Scott Jacobs has 51 criminal convictions under his name. The brunt of them are breaches and nearly 20 are youth convictions.

But some are a bit more serious. At least 10 convictions are for violent offences. Those include a couple of robberies, aggravated assault and forcible confinement.

A Kamloops provincial court judge describes his past as “fairly horrific.”

He says he knows that, and for the last year he’s been trying to do what he can to maintain his sobriety and live a crime-free lifestyle.

Growing up, Jacobs was introduced to alcohol and drugs at age 11. His lawyer, Graham Kay, says this is when Jacobs's criminal activity started too.

Although his past offences are irrelevant as to what brought him into Kamloops court today, March 21, he faces charges for another breach of a probation where he was ordered not to possess or consume alcohol. In the same incident, he was charged with theft under $5,000.

During a separate matter he was charged with resisting arrest and giving police officers the wrong identity after almost overdosing in a Kamloops hotel room last February.

He’s already been credited for 90 days in custody and Kamloops Provincial Judge Marianne Armstrong sentenced him to no further jail time along with 12 months of probation for these offences.

Last January, Jacobs entered a liquor store in Chase where he was living at the time. He purchased a bottle of vodka and left. He returned to the same store later that day.

Crown prosecutors say video surveillance captured Jacobs trying to conceal a 40-ounce bottle of vodka in a jacket he had draped over his arm.

He grabbed an 11-ounce bottle of vodka and paid for only the smaller bottle. Employees discovered the theft through surveillance the next day and called the police.

But he wasn’t arrested for this offence until February 2018.

On Feb. 5, 2018, police received an abandoned 911 call form a woman staying at the Knights Inn in Kamloops for an unconscious male who was overdosing.

The woman called back and said she administered Narcan which is the brand name for the medication naloxone which is used to block the effects of overdoses from opioids.

When officers attended to provide assistance, they located the woman who placed the 911 call along with another female and a male in the hotel room.

The man was identified as Jacobs.

He stated he was fine and he didn’t require any medical attention. He told paramedics his name was Nicholas Alexander.

He told police and paramedics he wanted to go to the grocery store. Both Jacobs and the other woman started to walk away until police became suspicious of the name and date of birth Jacobs gave them.

Jacobs maintained his name was Nicholas Alexander and was born in 1999. Police ran this name through their database and discovered there was such as person, but their date of birth was in 1998.

Police began to quiz Jacobs on Nicholas Alexander’s history and realized he could not confirm his identity.

Police arrested Jacobs for obstruction and he was taken to the police station where his finger prints were sent to Ottawa to determine his identity. The results came back with Jacob’s photograph. At that point, police realized he had also violated probation orders.

Jacobs lawyer says his client’s issues with alcohol and drugs go back to when he was still a teenager. When he was 15-years-old he moved to Edmonton to meet his dad.

This turned out to be a “disastrous move”, according to his lawyer.

“His life becomes filled with drugs and gang life,” Kay said.

His father also introduced him to heroin, Kay said. He was the first person to inject Jacobs.

In 2017, Kay says Jacobs started to turn his life around but had a relapse with his drug addiction.

In the last year since he was granted bail Jacobs says he has been attending AA meetings to maintain his sobriety. He even chairs those meetings, court heard. 

“I have no intention of going back,” Jacobs said in court. “I’m dealing with the wreckage of my past… I’ve come a long way.”

He said his goal is to stay employed, sober and continue supporting his family.

“I’m not just doing this for myself,” he says. “I can honestly say [my family] looks up to me now. They wouldn’t even let me in their car or [let me] use their phone before because I would have ran away with it, now today they come to me with their problems.”

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