When given the chance to address the court at his sentencing hearing Tuesday, Mitchell Nippard didn’t use the moment to ask for leniency from the judge. Instead, he stressed his innocence when it comes to the two violent home invasions for which he has been convicted, and gave reasons why he believed he should have been acquitted instead.
“It’s evident that I’m held responsible regarding association with parties who were believed to be involved,” Nippard, 26, said in an articulate address, read from pages of loose leaf with neat handwriting in pen. “I do remain sympathetic for the victims of these incidents, but it’s clear the evidentiary gaps in the case left the courts in doubt. Most rational inferences may be consistent with association, but I still do not understand how it was admissible enough or proved I had any involvement in the alleged premeditation.”
Nippard was charged along with three others — Gary Hennessey, Abdifatah Mohamed and Tyler Donahue — in connection with four home invasions in St. John’s, Mount Pearl and Paradise in Feb. 2017 that saw people tied up and held at gunpoint, assaulted, their homes robbed and their pets shot by masked intruders.
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The case against the four men was entirely circumstantial, since none of the victims who testified were able to identify the perpetrators, other than to say they were male and to give general descriptions of their size and clothing.
After presenting their case, Crown prosecutors Alanna Dwyer and Chris McCarthy said they would not pursue convictions on two of the home invasions, due to a lack of evidence. Provincial court Judge Mike Madden eventually cleared Hennessey of all charges, saying there wasn’t enough evidence to warrant convictions. Donahue was found guilty in relation to a home invasion on Angel’s Road in Paradise, as were Nippard and Mohamed. The latter two men were also convicted in connection with a home invasion on Milton Road in Paradise.
Madden said at that time the men seemed to know each other through Nippard, who is believed to have been involved in the planning of the home invasions.
“It’s not factual that I actually played a part in the pre-planning,” Nippard said Tuesday. “There’s no compelling evidence to differentiate who is responsible in the alleged pre-planning, regardless of which way it may seem. I suggest I have no idea what actually transpired.”
In the Milton Road incident, a man testified he was in the shed with his father and friends when three masked men burst through the door. He said he was ordered to get on his knees while the others were put face down on the floor, zip-ties on their wrists and black tape over their mouth. He was hit in the head with a .22-calibre pistol and ordered to his feet to lead the intruders inside the house.
“It’s devastating for me and my family to hear that they would actually believe I would send someone into someone’s home where there was a little girl the same age as my daughter." — Mitchell Nippard
Once inside, the men tied up the victim’s girlfriend and his mother with zip-ties and ransacked the home, stealing cash and jewelry. They took the victim to a second location on Cameo Drive, a friend’s house where he said he kept jewelry.
On Angel’s Road, two masked men entered the home of a pregnant woman and robbed her at gunpoint while her 10-month-old daughter slept, pulling her engagement ring off her finger and taking her iPhone, XBox and a lotto ticket worth $1,000.
Nippard told the court he has a daughter who was also 10 months old at that time.
“It’s devastating for me and my family to hear that they would actually believe I would send someone into someone’s home where there was a little girl the same age as my daughter,” he said. “It’s disheartening to believe that people would actually come to the conclusion that I would send people into someone’s home where children are. Where families are. It’s not something that I’m morally capable of. It’s not something that I would do.”
Nippard said his time on the streets and his involvement with drugs accounted for his “association with people that were unsavory,” but reiterated that he didn’t have anything to do with the planning of the home invasions. He suggested there are “many feasible explanations” as to what actually happened, that didn’t include him.
“I would like to show sympathetic views to the victims,” Nippard continued. “My condolences go out to anyone who was affected, and I hope that no one suffers from any long-term effects. To my family, especially my little girl, my sincerest apologies for the absence I’ve displayed in your life. If any of you knew me well, it’s obvious that my conviction is a horrific misconception. In conclusion, I’ll proclaim my innocence now as well as in my appeal application.”
Nippard also pleaded guilty to three breaches of court orders, one of them being an order to have no contact with the mother of his child. The court heard he had, though other people, sent her a series of text messages over a period of months, asking about his daughter and saying he loved her, among other things.
Prosecutors asked for a total jail term of between 10 1/2 and 12 1/2 years for the two home invasions and another 90 days for the court order breaches. They took no issue with credit given at a rate of 1.5 to 1 for every day he has spent on remand. Nippard has been in custody since his arrest in February 2017. Dwyer noted Nippard has a criminal record, albeit not a lengthy one, and has shown little remorse for his actions.
“He chose to make victims out of persons he knew or he was familiar with their homes, at least,” Dwyer said. “The trauma and terror inflicted on the victims was significant, and although he didn’t enter the homes, he would have predicted people would be terrified.”
Nippard’s lawyer, Shanna Wicks, suggested a sentence of between 5 1/2 and 6 1/2 years behind bars, saying the home invasions should be considered as a single “criminal adventure.” When it comes to contacting the mother of his child, Wicks said Nippard’s actions were “ill-advised but caring and concerned rather than egregious.”
Madden, who said he wanted to wait and hear sentencing submissions in the cases of Nippard’s co-accused before he made any decisions, will sentence Nippard on July 26.
Twitter: @tara_bradbury
