Man had loaded gun in pants after shots fired during ruckus

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The Moncton Crown is seeking three and a half years in prison for a man caught with a loaded gun in his pants after shots were fired during an altercation in the city.

Christopher Allen Lennon, 34, of Moncton, was in provincial court for sentencing Monday after pleading guilty shortly after his April 6, 2023, arrest to having a concealed weapon – a handgun – illegally possessing a loaded restricted firearm and having a gun in breach of multiple court orders.

Prosecutor Jason Godin said there were 911 calls that day with people reporting the sounds of a scuffle on the sixth floor of a Cameron Street apartment building and also the sound of two shots fired outside the building.

When Mounties arrived, Lennon and another man were walking away from the building, court heard. After talking to the men and finding out who they were police decided to arrest them and found Lennon had a loaded Smith & Wesson in his waistband.

Godin said Lennon was under lifetime court orders banning him from having guns, imposed by four different Moncton judges between 2008 and 2015.

The prosecutor said the Crown does not allege Lennon fired the shots, and defence lawyer Gilles Lemieux said his client took the gun from someone else. Lemieux said Lennon got a call that his brother was in trouble and heard yelling, screaming and fighting over the phone, so he came to help and got involved in a shoving/wrestling match.

“Mr. Lennon ended up with the gun. He doesn’t know if it was the one that was fired or not,” said Lemieux. “Police were called and he’s there with the gun, so he had a brain cramp and put it in his pants.

“He had nothing to do with it. He was just there to help his brother.”

Godin said the three-and-a-half-year sentence is appropriate because Lennon had a concealed loaded gun on him “out in the street” and he also violated so many court bans preventing him from ever having a gun again.

Lemieux also recommended three and a half years but argued his client should get less time than that. He said Lennon’s sentencing has been held up since last June because his pre-sentence report wasn’t finished by the probation office. The defence claimed the office may have used out-of-date contact information, which delayed the completion of the report since last summer.

Since the offender has been on a curfew since his release, Lemieux said it’s only fair that the court give him a break on the sentence as a result.

Judge Paul Duffie said he would consider that request and adjourned sentencing until May 24.

Lennon said while he’s been in trouble in the past, this incident with the gun isn’t representative of where he’s at in his life right now.

“My life has changed drastically over the last seven or eight years,” he told the court.