The former owner and operator of a Saskatoon pharmacy declared himself guilty on drug trafficking Monday, admitting that he illegally sold more than 22,000 oxycodone pills.
Jenna Ternan, 43, was sentenced to five years in prison for what Judge David Gerecke called a “vessel violation of trust” that “led him to harm many people who will never know.”
He made the comments while accepting the joint sentence proposal at the Bank of Saskatoon Court of King of the Crown and Defense.
According to an agreed statement of events presented in the Court, the police began investigating Ternan after they arrested a man in January 2023 and seized drugs that included oxycodone pills and a box with a label for the Northumberland pharmacy, which Ternan possessed and operated.
The man’s cell phone also contained messages between him and Ternan who talked about the exchange of drugs for money.
Police finally determined that Ternan sold more than 22,200 pills, valued between $ 58,000 and $ 87,400, between September 2022 and January 2023, said the prosecutor of the Kirsten Janis crown in court.
Ternan was arrested in March 2023, along with his eight -year consecutive law partner, Elmer Hanson. Hanson was also accused, but died before he went to trial.
The defense lawyer Will Louison said that Ternan “was trapped” in drug trafficking and that it has been difficult to identify how he began. He described how Ternan’s partner, Hanson, fought with a drug addiction and had a chronic injury that affected his ability to work, and then Hanson became addicted to the opioids that had prescribed him.
Ternan financially supported Hanson and used it in the pharmacy after he could no longer work on construction. Hanson also developed a game addiction.
While drug trafficking was part of Hanson, Ternan accepts his role and recognizes that what he was doing was wrong, Louison said.
The jurisprudence shows the range of sentences for pharmacists who of drug trafficking are between three and 14 years, but the longest sentences have involved fentanyl, which is considered a more dangerous drug, said the judge.
Gerecke said that the breach of trust is a “very heavy factor,” but agreed that five years was an appropriate sentence.
Less credit for its time in preventive detention, Ternan has approximately three years and 11 months to serve.
