Sask. appeal court rejects stiffer manslaughter sentence for Saskatoon man

A recently released Saskatchewan appeal court decision has rejected the Crown’s attempt to get a tougher sentence for a man charged with manslaughter in the 2019 death of Kevin Nataucappo.

Destin Mosquito was sentenced to seven years after pleading guilty to the manslaughter charge in May of 2021.

He was one of five people, including Nataucappo, who broke into a home on Howell Crescent in September 2019 in order to assault one of the people inside.

The 21-year-old Mosquito brought a sawed-off shotgun that went off accidentally and killed Nataucappo, 31.

The Crown appeal argues the sentencing judge didn’t put enough weight in aggravating factors like Mosquito’s criminal history and the fact he was prohibited from possessing firearms at the time.

The group fled the scene after the gun went off and left Nataucappo behind, according to court records. He died of his injuries in hospital.

At Mosquito’s sentencing, the judge agreed that his young age, his difficult life circumstances, and the fact that he accepted responsibility for the incident were major mitigating factors that contributed to the decision to give him less than the 12-year maximum sentence for manslaughter.

In the appeal, the Crown argued that simply bringing the weapon along to the break-in showed moral culpability that should have warranted a stronger sentence.

“A person who does not intend to shoot anyone does not arm himself with a loaded sawed-off shotgun before forcibly entering an occupied home,” the Crown wrote in its submission.

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Appeal court Judge Brian Barrington-Foote, who wrote the decision released earlier this month, rejected that argument because the defence, the Crown and the original sentencing judge had all agreed on the fact that Mosquito never intended to shoot anyone.

In making its appeal, Barrington-Foote said the Crown is not allowed to reject the positions taken by its prosecutors at trial.

Barrington-Foote writes that the appeal repeatedly tried to diverge from the Crown’s arguments, and that based on the previously agreed-upon facts, the sentence was appropriate.

All four men involved in the fatal break-in were charged with manslaughter. All pleaded guilty except for Mohamad Al-Zawahreh, who testified in court that the group drove to the home on Howell Crescent in order to confront someone who had been spreading rumours about him.

Al-Zawahreh told the court he didn’t know a gun went off until he was arrested.

-With files from Laura Woodward