KELOWNA – A former Kelowna Rockets player was sentenced to almost two years of jail recently for a series of 'unsophisticated' crimes across the Lower Mainland since 2013.

Brady Ron Leavold, 28, is a Port Coquitlam native who played for the Rockets in 2007 and 2008. He was signed to the American Hockey League shortly after but a knee injury led to an addiction to painkillers which escalated to heroin dependency.

On Feb. 29 he was sentenced to 21 months in jail after he pleaded guilty to robbing a Port Coquitlam taxi driver at knifepoint and 10 lesser counts including theft and resisting arrest.

Judge Gregory Ridout called the crimes, which include a liquor store robbery in the Vancouver area, a series of 'unsophisticated heists.'

“You were bound to be caught, of course,” the judge said, according to the Province. “Maybe you knew it, maybe it was a form of reaching out.”

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