Jury deliberations set to begin for elderly woman, daughter accused of trafficking drugs
A 12-person jury is scheduled to begin deliberations Friday in the case of two elderly woman accused of trafficking large amounts of drugs in 2016.
Mary Anne Lafferty, 58, and her mother Vitaline Lafferty, 79, are each facing eight counts of possessing marijuana, cocaine, MDMA and codeine for the purpose of trafficking.
RCMP confiscated 5.4 kilograms of marijuana, 1.7 kilograms of cocaine, roughly three ounces of MDMA and five litres of cough syrup from a car the women were driving at a checkstop near Fort Providence in 2016.
On Thursday, both defendants presented their closing arguments in front of N.W.T Supreme Court Justice Shannon Smallwood.
Mary Anne's attorney, Thomas Boyd, told the court he believes his client should be acquitted due to a lack of evidence. He said Mary Anne lived a simple life in 2016, which included caring for her grandchildren.
He noted that she received $65,000 in a residential school fund and therefore did not have a financial motive to pick up drugs. Mary Anne told the court earlier in the trial that she did not receive any money to travel to Indian Cabins, where she picked up the packages that were later found to contain drugs.
Vitaline's lawyer, Charles Davison, told the jury his client had no idea she would be heading to Northern Alberta until the morning before she was arrested. He said Vitaline was told by her daughter they were going to a funeral in Fort Resolution.
Davison said his client was oblivious to the point where she did not ask Mary Anne questions about the trip.
In court yesterday, the Crown presented text messages between convicted drug kingpin Todd Dube and Mary Anne, sent hours before she and her mother were arrested.
These were among the phone calss and messages police had intercepted between multiple suspects in an RCMP operation known as Green Manalishi.
Crown prosecutor Duane Praught doubled-down on the Crown's position that both Lafferty women knew exactly what they were doing.
During his closing statements, Praught asked the jury to use common sense and said a transaction was made between Mary Anne and the man who dropped off the drugs.
""Drug kingpins don't give $100,000 to dupes and just hope for the best," he said.
