Double killer gets three years for trafficking guns from prison

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The second time William (Billy) McDonald was sentenced for murder, the judge said she doubted he would ever give up a life of crime.

“Mr. McDonald is, in my view, totally committed to a criminal lifestyle. He has either no insight into his behaviour or he is wilfully blind,” Superior Court Justice Helen Rady said in January 2021 when she dealt a life sentence with no chance for parole for 25 years to the once wannabe rapper and local thug.

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At that time, he was sentenced for the second-degree murder of Jonathan Zak, 29, a total stranger to McDonald. Zak was gunned down by McDonald and an accomplice along a northeast London path during a robbery attempt in July 2012.

That sentence was handed down more than a year after he had been dealt his first life sentence for second-degree murder, with no chance of parole for 23 years, for the execution-style shooting of Emmanuel Awai, 26, who had once been McDonald’s friend, in December 2016.

Rady’s assessment proved to be prophetic. On Friday, McDonald, 34, was back in a London courtroom through a teleconferencing link to the federal prison where he lives, to plead guilty for his part in an expansive gun trafficking scheme and wide-ranging investigation involving several law enforcement agencies that led to 70 arrests and more than 500 charges in the summer of 2023.

McDonald, 34, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy with an unknown person to commit an indictable offence, namely to traffic firearms.  Superior Court Justice Kelly Gorman agreed to a joint sentencing position of three years, the mandatory minimum term, to be served consecutively to his life sentence.

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McDonald attended court seated at a table in an interview room at Collins Bay Institution, the federal prison where he is housed.

Assistant Crown attorney Meredith Gardiner filed McDonald’s “unenviable” criminal record and a lengthy agreed statement of facts with the court that were not read aloud, but made an exhibit at the guilty plea. “No firearms were actually placed in Mr. McDonald’s hands and there is no evidence that he was particularly successful in transferring firearms,” she said.

The facts stated London police received information from a confidential informant that “Dolo,” the street name McDonald used, had a burner phone in his jail cell and was using the encrypted Signal app to communicate.

McDonald had reached out to the informant about selling a gun and sent a list of guns for which he was trying to be the middleman.

On May 23, 2023, correctional officers saw McDonald had a blocker covering his cell window so they could not see him in the cell. They told McDonald they were doing a routine search, but when they tried to open the door, it was blocked on the inside and could only be opened a couple of centimetres.

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McDonald was ordered to move whatever was blocking the door and he complied after several minutes. He was frisked and was checked with a metal detector outside his cell. He was ordered to place his hands on the wall and lift his feet so an officer could scan his shoes.

McDonald complained and said he didn’t have to comply. Ultimately, he followed the instructions, but only raised his feet a few centimetres off the floor. He was escorted to another area where he asked to sit down and take off his shoes. He refused.

McDonald was taken to a holding cell where he admitted to a correctional officer he had a cell phone in his shoe. A senior officer ordered McDonald to hand it over. He reached into his boxer shorts where he had hidden the Samsung cellphone, the charger and the charging block.

A search of the phone revealed how McDonald was contacting people he knew to sell firearms on behalf of another person. Two cellphones were seized in the investigation.

Defence lawyer Cassandra DeMelo said McDonald’s guilty plea “comes quite earnestly and genuinely.” She told Gorman McDonald grew up in London, has a Grade 10 education and became involved in a criminal lifestyle at an early age.

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“He has spent most of his adult life in custody,” she said. DeMelo added his life sentence is under appeal and being heard this month, but she did not say for which murder conviction.

She said McDonald had limited means and turned to crime to survive. “It just getting worse until the point he now finds himself in custody for long stints of time. As he describes it, once you are at that level, you are just looking to support your family while you can.”

She said McDonald was “looking for a way to give back or support” his extended family “in some small way.”

“Obviously a very misguided decision, beyond misguided,” DeMelo said. “And criminal.”

Gorman acknowledged the sentence was at the low end of the range, but not unacceptable, given his guilty plea.

“It’s astonishing to me that you were capable, while serving a life sentence for second-degree murder, to attempt to middle or broker the sale of firearms within this community,” she said.

Part of McDonald’s sentence will be not to communicate with anyone else named in the case.

“I recommend you keep your head down, sir,” Gorman told McDonald. “I suspect you’re remaining at Collins Bay. You will have all eyes on you.

“It’s best to walk a straight line.”

jsims@postmedia.com

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