UN gangster to serve 4 years of 12-year sentence

United Nations gang member Dan Russell has been sentenced in B.C. Supreme Court to 12 years in prison for manslaughter and conspiring to kill members of a rival gang.

But Russell, 32, will only serve four years and two months out of the 12-year sentence, as he is entitled to double credit for time served in pre-trial detention, Associate Chief Justice A.F. Cullen said.

Russell, who has been in custody since his arrest in 2009, pleaded guilty this week to the charges of conspiring to commit murder and using a firearm to commit manslaughter.

Justice Cullen did not elaborate as much of the case remains under a publication ban, but he said the sentence reflects the "mitigating circumstances of the offender’s guilty plea and the other salient factors at play".

Russell admitted that he conspired with others to kill rivals Jonathan Bacon, James Bacon and Jarrod Bacon and their Red Scorpions gang associates.

The manslaughter plea is for the shooting death of Jonathan Barber, a stereo installer, who was driving one of the Bacon brother's vehicles along a Vancouver street when it was sprayed by bullets.

In his sentencing decision, Justice Cullen noted that Barber "was in the wrong place at the wrong time and for that he lost his life and his family and friends must bear that burden for the balance of theirs."

Jamie Bacon is facing trial for conspiracy to commit murder in relation to the Surrey Six murders in October 2007.

His brother Jonathan was fatally shot in Kelowna in 2011, and Jarrod Bacon is currently serving 12 years in prison for cocaine trafficking.