Man gets three-year prison sentence for knife-point robbery

By Tina Comeau

THE VANGUARD

NovaNewsNow.com

A 38-year-old man has been sentenced to three years in prison for robbing a 63-year-old man in Yarmouth at knife point last November.

Paul Matthew Leprieur was sentenced after pleading guilty to counts of robbery and using a credit card that he knew to be stolen. There were also breach charges involved.

Last Nov. 20, at around 11 p.m., Leprieur and another man robbed a man at a residence on Carleton Street. The victim was not injured, but he was threatened with the knife.

Two hundred dollars in cash was stolen, along with a credit card belonging to the victim. At the time of the offence the RCMP said the landline telephone was also taken to prevent the man from calling police.

Leprieur was arrested at a local gas station, where he was attempting to use the stolen credit card. According to the Crown, he had used the credit card several times to make purchases, totaling just over $42.

The robbery last fall happened not long after Leprieur was released from jail in Ontario, where he had been serving a four-month sentence on assault and breach charges. That four-month sentence had been handed down on June 29.

After his arrest in Yarmouth following the robbery, the Crown attempted to have Leprieur held in custody until his matters were dealt with by the court. But instead he was released on conditions and house arrest to Harvest House in Digby. While there Leprieur stole a vehicle and drove back to Yarmouth. That theft resulted in other charges that Leprieur was also sentenced on during his March 19 sentencing. He received an additional six months in jail for the theft of the auto.

Leprieur has also been ordered to provide a DNA sample to the national registry and was given a 10-year firearms prohibition.

Meanwhile a co-accused in the Nov. 20 robbery, Robert Lee Gaudet, is slated to be sentenced on May 13.