(Montreal) The American who was kidnapped with her husband and smuggled to Quebec in October 2020 maintains that she lives in constant fear of being the victim of another violent crime.
Sandra Helm gave a “victim impact statement” in court Thursday during a sentencing hearing for Gary Arnold, convicted in February.
Ms. Helm told Superior Court Judge Michel Pennou in Montreal that what happened to her and her husband had turned their lives upside down. Mr. Helm died in 2021.
A jury found Arnold guilty in February of five counts, including kidnapping, extortion and conspiracy to kidnap.
The 54-year-old was found guilty of participating in the conspiracy to abduct Sandra Helm and her husband James from Moira, New York in the fall of 2020.
The Crown is asking for a 17-year prison sentence, while the defense is recommending around 10 years. Four other men arrested with Arnold received sentences ranging from six to 15 years.
“What happened to us changed our lives in every way imaginable,” Helm told Judge Pennou on Thursday. At the time, I was afraid of being killed. My husband and I thought we would never come home to see our family again. »
The two sixties were abducted from their home by a group of men in September 2020, smuggled into Quebec by boat via the Akwesasne Mohawk reserve and detained in a chalet in Magog, in the Eastern Townships.
The Helms were abducted to be used as bargaining chips in what the Crown said was a botched drug deal involving their grandson, Mackenzie Helm. The kidnappers actually wanted to trade the couple for 120 pounds of cocaine or $3.5 million in cash, but they didn’t know Mackenzie had been arrested in Vermont days earlier — with the drugs.
During the trial, Sandra Helm identified Arnold as one of the men who was in her room the night of the abduction, September 27, 2020.
The couple was detained for two days in Magog before being released, unharmed, by the Tactical Intervention Group of the Sûreté du Québec.
“All this time thinking and feeling that we were going to be killed for something that had nothing to do with us, or knew nothing about — I could never have imagined that in our 70 years of existence” , Sandra Helm told the court, reading excerpts from a statement she had written.
“It traumatized me — my husband too — and I will have to live with that for the rest of my life. »
Even coming to testify at the trial earlier this year was difficult for Ms. Helm, as she feared reprisals from associates of the gang that orchestrated the kidnapping.
She told the court that she had always lived in a “permanent state of fear” ever since. She does not go out after dark and she is nervous when people approach her home, despite a security system and cameras that have since been installed.
Her husband had reinforced the front door to prevent it from being kicked in. The couple also bought a gun, kept under the bed, but Mrs. Helm got rid of it after her husband died.
She told the court that it’s common in their small upstate New York community to leave doors unlocked and not be afraid of strangers — but that’s not the case for her now. “I’m never comfortable,” she said.
Judge Pennou will hand down the sentence on April 17.
