19-year-old crack cocaine trafficker sentenced to 3 years

A 19-year-old Alberta man who was caught driving 1,100 baggies of crack cocaine to Yellowknife has been sentenced to three years in prison.

• 1,100 baggies of crack cocaine seized in Yellowknife traffic stop

In territorial court on Thursday, Tanner Freeman pleaded guilty to several charges, including possession of cocaine for the purposeof trafficking.

Freeman, also known as Tanner WadePerkes,admitted that in September he paid another man $400 to drive him to Edmonton to pick up the drugs.

RCMP officers, acting on a tip, were waiting for the vehicle just outside of Yellowknife on the men's return.

When they pulled the vehicle over, police found 1,100 individually wrapped rocks of crack cocaine ready for sale.

The prosecutor estimated that the drugs would have sold for $88,000 to $118,000 on the streets.

Freeman also pleaded guilty to a charge of uttering threats, for threatening to put a hit on a corrections officer while he was being held at the North Slave Correctional Centre.

At the time of his arrest, Freemanwas outon bail for charges he's still facing in Alberta. He was also convicted Thursday of breaching a number of bail conditions.

Freeman's lawyer said his client has been living on the streets since running away from an abusive home at the age of 14.