Cut/Paste from the toronto star; Peter Small Courts Bureau
Rejecting a call from the Crown for a three-year prison sentence, a judge has handed 12 months of house arrest to two young men who sped up Mount Pleasant Rd. and killed a popular taxi driver.
Wing-Piao Dumani Ross and his friend, Alexander Ryazanov, both 20, must also serve an additional year under an 11 p.m.-6 a.m. curfew that can be overridden with their parents’ written permission.
“It was an exercise in speed and bad judgment, not criminal intent, that resulted in the death of Mr. (Tahir) Khan,” Justice John Moore said yesterday.
The two university students are young, first offenders, pose no danger to the community, and showed remorse by pleading guilty to dangerous driving causing death in Khan’s tragic death, Moore said.
“Neither imagined or intended the consequences of their actions,” he said, calling it “a worst-case scenario.”
The judge also imposed 150 hours of community service and two years probation. The men are prohibited from driving for four years.
During the year of house arrest, they can attend university or jobs.
The maximum sentence for their crime is 14 years in prison.
Jim Bell, general manager of Diamond Taxicab, for whom Khan worked, said he was disappointed with the sentence.
“I wonder if the situation had been reversed: If it was two cab drivers racing up Mount Pleasant and they hit a kid driving his father’s car … whether the cab drivers would be getting 12 months house arrest? I don’t think so.”
Brian Patterson, president of the Ontario Safety League, said the attorney general should appeal.
“It’s woefully inadequate. It flies in the face of all the safety legislation that has come forward in the last 18 months,” he said.
Mohammad Alam, the Khan family’s Canadian trustee and president of the Islamic Foundation of Toronto, called the sentence unfortunate, adding it sends the wrong message to youth about street racing. He said Khan’s family in Pakistan plans to sue the two men, under his direction, and a lawyer has been retained.
On Jan. 24, 2006, each driver was in his parents’ Mercedes heading north on Mount Pleasant, at speeds estimated between 80 km/h and 140 km/h, toward Ryazanov’s home near the Bridle Path area.
At about 10:20 p.m. Ryazanov’s vehicle T-boned Khan’s Diamond taxi as the cabbie was turning left onto Whitehall Rd. The Mercedes drove the cab into a utility pole.
Ross drove on a bit, then parked and walked back to identify himself to police.
Khan, 46, was just three days shy of getting his Canadian citizenship. He died instantly from blunt force trauma. He was his family’s primary breadwinner.
Alam said he personally delivered $11,000 raised by the Islamic foundation to Khan’s widow and other relatives in Pakistan last July and that within two weeks, after paperwork is completed, he should be able to send them the $28,500 raised by Diamond Taxicab.
“I feel horrible for the incident. I am sorry,” Ross told the judge before he was sentenced.
Later, his lawyer, David Humphrey, said the young man is relieved by the sentence, but it would be wrong to call him happy. “He appreciated that he was facing potentially serious consequences.”
Todd White, Ryazanov’s lawyer, pointed out that neither man was on drugs or alcohol when driving. “Justice Moore came to the perfect decision,” he said.
Ryazanov’s mother and Ross’s parents, as well as friends of both men, were in court to show support.
I find it rather interesting that these guys got no jail time in relation to street racing resulting in death…
I guess the trick to not getting F’d royally is to drive Mercedes-benz’
