A man who pleaded guilty to manslaughter for the fatal shooting of a gang associate in Maple Ridge in 2016 has been sentenced to four and a half years in jail.
Deane Sahanovitch appeared in B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster March 2 to plead guilty to manslaughter for the slaying of Jonathen Patko, 32. A murder charge he was facing was dropped.
He was also handed a lifetime firearms prohibition.
Patko was found shot to death about 2 a.m. on Sept. 24, 2016 in the 24300-block of 102 Avenue in Maple Ridge.
The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team announced the change in plea Tuesday, without providing any details as to why the murder charge could no longer be supported.
IHIT Corporal Frank Jang said: IHIT investigators, supported by the Ridge Meadows RCMP, worked diligently in order to secure the evidence in this investigation.
Sahanovitch, 56, was arrested weeks after Patko was killed.
After the arrest, Patko’s mother posted a comment on her Facebook page suggesting others were with others with Sahanovitch at the time of the shooting and she hoped they would also be charged.
Prior to the shooting, Sahanovitch had no criminal history in B.C.
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Deane Sahanovitch in Facebook photo
Patko had run-ins with the law in his youth. When he was still a teen, he was charged in the beating death of a Port Coquitlam man along with Jesse Margison. Patko was later acquitted by a jury, while Margison pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
Margison, a gangster with the Independent Soldiers gang, later suffered a head injury in a jailhouse beating while in pretrial custody on other charges.
Patko was convicted in 2008 of providing false information and was fined $3,000. In 2015 he was handed a 20-month driving prohibition for driving without due care and attention.
