The former vice-president of the Nanaimo Hells Angels was sentenced this week to three years in jail for trafficking cocaine and selling illicit cannabis.
Sean Oliver Douglas Kendall, of Port Alberni, pleaded guilty to four counts during an appearance in Vancouver provincial court last May.
On Thursday, he appeared in Vancouver again for his sentencing. On top of the three years, Kendall received a 10-year firearms prohibition.
The sentence was the result of a joint submission by Kendall’s lawyer and a federal prosecutor, according to Staff Sgt. Lindsey Houghton, of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit.
The 45-year-old biker was arrested last December, along with another Hells Angel and two associates after a major drug trafficking investigation on Vancouver Island targeting the Angels and some of its affiliated puppet clubs.
Federal prosecutors approved 41 charges against Kendall, full-patch Hells Angel William Paulsen, former member Kristopher Smith and associate William Thompson.
Kendall admitted to trafficking cocaine in Nanaimo in December 2019 and February 2020 and in Vancouver on March 5, 2020. The cannabis count related to a Nanaimo incident on Dec. 18, 2019, court records show.
Last December, CFSEU released details of the investigation, which began in June 2018 and resulted in the seizure of 22 firearms and more than 13 kilograms of illicit drugs including cocaine, methamphetamine, black market cannabis and oxycodone.
“The Hells Angels, as everyone knows, is an international outlaw motorcycle club that has had connections to gang and organized crime activity in B.C., across Canada and internationally for decades,” CFSEU’s chief officer, Manny Mann, said at the time.
The other accused in the case are yet to go to trial.
Kendall’s sentencing came the same day that the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear an appeal by the notorious biker gang related to the B.C. government’s seizure of clubhouses in Nanaimo, East Vancouver and Kelowna for their link to criminal activity.
