A man who was caught transporting 50 cartons of illegal cigarettes near Popkum awaits sentencing from B.C. Provincial Court Judge Peter Whyte. On April 5, 2023 Kenneth Jeffrey Cooper was found guilty of two tobacco-related charges plus one count of driving while prohibited. He used some creative arguments as he defended himself at a trial that ran over five days in October, December and January.
Cooper, who told the court he preferred to be called Tiberius Rex or just Tiberius, was pulled over by police on Highway 1 on May 24, 2020. Driving a Mercedes Sprinter panel van, he was clocked at 114 kilometres per hour in a construction zone where the posted speed limit was 60. At trial, the officers testified that Cooper was not forthcoming with his name. When they finally figured out who he was, they found he wasn’t supposed to be driving a vehicle.
They had to impound his van, which is automatic when you’re caught going more than 40 clicks over a posted speed limit, but before it was towed away they had a look inside. They found 16 cases (50 cartons) of Rolled Gold cigarettes, which are illegal to possess in B.C. because they don’t have taxation stamps on the packaging.
Cooper had 160,000 cigarettes, well above the limit of 1,000 imported unstamped cigarettes allowed for personal use. He described himself as an unlicensed cigarette dealer.
At trial, Cooper argued that the search of the van violated his Charter rights and police forced him to hand over the keys when he didn’t want to. Whyte rejected those arguments. Cooper also said police didn’t provide him access to counsel without delay. Whyte agreed with that, and some of the statements Cooper gave to police were ruled inadmissible at trial.
Otherwise, Cooper’s legal defence boiled down to ‘I did it, but the law doesn’t apply to me.’
“He says that as a living man and a natural born human, he possesses certain inalienable rights that transcend the rules and regulations thrust upon him by the corporate entities of British Columbia and/or Canada,” Whyte wrote in his decision. “As I understood him, the defendant’s position was that he was entitled to behave in any way he deemed appropriate, so long as he did not physically hurt anyone.”
Whyte said Cooper was polite and respectful at trial, but described his legal position as untenable, baseless and without merit.
Cooper suggested that as a ‘non-status Native,’ he was entitled to have as many cigarettes as he wished in Canada, because all of Canada is “native land.” Another of Cooper’s arguments was that he was ‘travelling’ in the van and not ‘driving’ the van and therefore was not driving while prohibited, and he argued that because it was Kenneth Cooper behind the wheel and not Tiberius Rex, Tiberius couldn’t be found guilty of something Cooper did.
“I am encouraged to summarily dismiss such arguments as nonsensical bafflegab, and not waste the taxpayer’s money or the court’s time on submissions that have zero chance of success,” Whyte wrote.
Cooper is due back in court June 13 for a pre-sentence report.
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eric.welsh@theprogress.com
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