Jail for Kelowna man who sold drugs to undercover cop

KELOWNA – A local man with a long criminal history was sentenced to jail time today, Oct. 12, for selling oxycodone to an undercover officer, trying to return a bag of dog food he did not buy for a refund and stealing almost $200 from change machines.

Raymond David Garwood, 49, was arrested April 16, 2015 after an undercover RCMP officer called his number and arranged to buy heroin. They met that afternoon at a parking lot in West Kelowna and in exchange for $80, Garwood gave the officer a cigarette case containing drugs.

Inside was .38 g of oxycodone, a painkiller similar to heroin.

A little over a year later, he was arrested at WalMart for trying to return a large bag of dog food he didn’t buy for a $68 refund and in September 2016 was seen on video using a modified $20 bill to steal $77 in quarters from a Kelowna laundromat. Police arrested him within 30 minutes but on Jan. 7, 2017 he was caught again doing the same thing at a car wash in West Kelowna.

Garwood has 29 prior convictions, including a 2015 assault for which he received a conditional sentence of six months.

Judge James Threlfell called his pre-sentence report “dismal.”

“(He) has been supporting himself with crime,” he said. “It seems unlikely this gentleman will ever shake his drug habit.”

Garwood pleaded guilty to trafficking of a controlled substance, two counts of theft and fraud and was sentenced to four months and ten days in jail. 

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