Neil Mattson called his arrest for the theft of explosives on the Sea to Sky University grounds on Jan. 31 a rescue. He'd been struggling with an addiction to methamphetamine and the theft was only the most recent bad decision he'd made.
"If he'd been straight none of this would have happened," said Mattson's wife Anita.
Mattson was sentenced last week to four years for the theft of the dynamite to run concurrently with a two-year sentence for possession of blasting caps and another two-year sentence for driving while prohibited. And his spirits are good, said Anita.
"He's really good, doing really well," she said.
That's because Mattson is now clean, having gone "cold turkey" in jail, according to Anita. And he's taking the opportunity offered by the federal penal system to educate himself.
"He's applied to Vancouver Community College to be a drug counselor," said Anita. "That's what he wants to do. He wants to help people who want help."
Mattson expects to be sent to a minimum security federal facility given that the crime is his first federal offence, said Anita, but he will soon undergo an assessment to determine which level of incarceration is suitable.
Whatever the facility, Mattson will be released by Feb. 2006 to serve out the rest of his sentence on parole.
