A 19-year-old Cardigan man who assaulted a correctional officer at the provincial correctional centre earlier this year has been sentenced to serve five months in jail.
The sentence was handed down Wednesday by chief provincial court Judge John Douglas in the case of Marshall Andrew Vuozzo.
Vuozzo, whose actions at the correctional centre prompted the president of the union representing correctional officers to express concerns for their safety on the job, had pleaded guilty to a summary conviction assault.
The Crown had originally intended to proceed by way of indictment which could have opened the door to a much longer sentence but that did not come to pass. The maximum penalty for a summary conviction assault is six months.
Crown prosecutor Cindy Wedge asked for the maximum sentence.
She cited cases of assaults on correctional officers from across the country in which the sentences varied from a few months to more than two years.
Wedge said this was a very serious assault and must be treated as such. She described the assault as a planned deliberate attack.
Wedge said the sentence being imposed in this case would be followed closely by correctional officers and inmates.
She said the correctional officers would be following the sentence with an eye to the level of protection that is afforded them in the performance of their duty.
Inmates, she said, would be following the sentence to see what kind of jail time they would be looking at if they decided to strike out at a guard.
Thane MacEachern, Vuozzo’s defence counsel, argued that the six-month sentence proposed in this case was excessive and proposed a sentence more in the range of 30-60 days.
MacEachern said Vuozzo, who had never been in jail before, was encouraged to strike out at the correctional officer in question by other more seasoned inmates.
He said Vuozzo was remorseful for his actions, that he was not really a violent person and felt bad about striking the officer.
He said that in a sense he was more frightened than angry when he struck the officer because of what some of the other inmates had said to him.
MacEachern noted that Vuozzo’s pre-sentence report was generally positive.
He said a number of people interviewed for that report had made positive comments about his nature and his abilities.
Speaking for himself, Vuozzo said that while sitting in jail for the last several weeks awaiting sentence, he’s had time to think about the things he’s done, things he wishes he could change but can’t. He said he’d come to Charlottetown with a bad drug problem and that it only got worse.
He said he wanted to return to his home in Kings County, go back to work with his father in the fishing industry and resume his education.

In addition to the charge of assaulting a police officer, Vuozzo was sentenced by Douglas Wednesday on several other matters.
He had pleaded guilty to charges of theft, break, enter and theft, possession of stolen property and failure to appear for court.
Sentence was suspended and probation ordered on some of those charges.
But Douglas did sentence Vuozzo to an additional three months custody for the break and enter charges, the possession of stolen property and the charges of failure to appear.
Upon his release from custody Vuozzo will be placed on probation.
As part of his probation he must undergo assessment, counselling and treatment, if required, for his use of alcohol and/or drugs and/or any other underlying issue that contributed to the commission of these offences.
He must also pay restitution totaling just over $1,300 for his various offences.