Brian Tobin's Son Receives 3 Years in Prison

Written by Blair Carter

OTTAWA (from The Toronto Star) —The son of former Newfoundland premier Brian Tobin was sentenced Monday to three years in prison for the drunk-driving stunt that killed his close friend last year.

“This is a very difficult case for all involved. In a tragic case such as this, the emotions run high and that was apparent throughout the proceedings,” Judge Lise Maisonneuve said as she sentenced Jack Tobin, 25, to three years in a penitentiary and a seven-year driving ban.

Tobin pleaded guilty in May to impaired driving causing the death of 24-year-old Alex Zolpis, a close friend with whom he attended high school and then Dalhousie University in Halifax.

Zolpis died when he was pinned under a pickup truck that Tobin was driving packed with five other friends, all heavily drunk after a night out, in a rooftop parking lot in the early morning hours of Christmas Eve.

“These are extremely trying times, for both Alex’s family and for the Tobin family,” said Maisonneuve, who took one hour to read her judgment Monday morning. “There is no sentence that I can impose that will remove the loss, the pain and the hurt, suffered by the victim’s family and friends ... When dealing with a case involving a loss of life, the sentence is not to be seen as an evaluation of the worth of the victim or to be equated with the value of the deceased’s life.”

Emma Roberts, who was Zolpis’ long-time girlfriend, nonetheless said she will never be satisfied.

“Alex is gone. He was killed by a drunk driver, who drove extremely recklessly and we’re left to pick up the pieces,” Roberts told reporters outside the courthouse Monday.

Brian Tobin told reporters that his son was taking responsibility for his actions and he still has a future ahead of him.

“I can tell you that he is a good son and a good brother who made a serious mistake,” the former premier said outside the courthouse as he stood beside his wife, Jodean.

“He is going to pay the price for that mistake and we have every confidence that he will continue, at the appropriate time, to make a contribution. The best way he can honour his friend Alex is to do that — to have a good life and make a contribution to his community and we know that he will.”

Maisonneuve said she weighed aggravating factors such as a history of reckless driving – including 11 speeding convictions and three license suspensions – against mitigating factors such as Tobin’s “extreme feelings of remorse and shame” when she came up with the three-year sentence.

She also noted the facts of the case “are unusual in nature,” in that Tobin was fooling around with the car in an empty rooftop parking lot – with six other friends who were drinking in the car – rather than speeding down the highway and or going through stoplights.

Maisonneuve said the facts led her to conclude “the level of blameworthiness” of Tobin is less than in other drunk-driving cases, even though she agreed with the Crown that he engaged in “a gravely irresponsible act.”

Tobin was also ordered to provide a blood sample to the court.

Crown attorney Mark Moors had asked for five years in jail plus a 10-year ban on driving, arguing it would send a strong message to others about the consequences of getting behind the wheel while intoxicated.

Maisonneuve decided that would be too harsh a sentence, but also said that what defence lawyer Norman Boxall was asking for – 18 to 30 months in prison plus a five-year prohibition on driving – was too light to serve as a general deterrence.

The judge had hinted that in addition to jail time it could include an order for Tobin to speak to schools about the deadly consequences of his mistake.

In order to do that, his sentence would have to have been no longer than two years and in the end she decided that was not long enough.

At the end of his sentencing hearing earlier this month, a tearful Jack Tobin told the court that he hopes others will learn from what he did wrong.

“If there is any good to come from this very dark cloud, I hope that it will be this message to others,” Tobin told a packed courtroom Aug. 5 as he apologized to the family of the friend he killed while drunkenly spinning his tires in an icy parking lot.

“The consequences of drinking and driving are deadly, they are real, they are enduring — a nightmare from which you never wake up.”

Dr. Ed Zolpis, the father of the victim, said Monday that he hopes the sentence drives that message home.

“We hope that the tragedy of Alex’s death and the judge’s decision today will be a reminder to all of us of the serious consequences of drinking and driving,” Zolpis said outside the courthouse. “Everyone must be careful to avoid placing others at risk from their poor judgment and reckless behaviours.”