EDMONTON -- The man who attacked a woman with a crowbar in a fit of road rage has lost his bid to have his sentenced shortened by the Court of Appeal of Alberta.
Jared Eliasson was appealing his 3 1/2 year prison sentence for aggravated assault after he lost an appeal of his conviction last December. He has two years less one day to serve after credit for time served.
In a written ruling issued Wednesday, the three-justice panel dismissed his appeal, ruling the judge used a "sound approach" in determining his sentence.
"The sentencing judge can hardly be faulted for concluding, as he did here, that the circumstances are so egregious as to defy rational explanation. That is what occurred on this record," the ruling reads.
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On March 7, 2017, Eliasson was delivering newspapers when a woman driver honked at his vehicle that was stopped and blocking a right-hand turn lane.
The ruling recounts how he then moved his vehicle but then followed the woman, backed up behind her and took out a crowbar which he then used to beat the woman, breaking both of her arms.
"The trauma and injuries that she suffered were both physically and emotionally life altering," the ruling reads.
Eliasson was sentenced in April of 2019 and remained out on bail pending his appeals with two years remaining on his sentence with credit for time served.
In appealing his sentence, Eliasson's lawyers had argued he was only given "trifling" credit by the sentencing judge for complying with strict bail conditions.
They also noted he was completing community college classes as well as volunteering with his church. They cited media coverage of his case as a further mitigating factor, claiming it had limited his employment and rehabilitation prospects.
The panel rejected those arguments, ruling that Eliasson's time in custody and negative media attention had both been accounted for in his sentence.
"The proposition that a sentence should be reduced because the grave circumstances of it are such as to foreseeably attract widespread public condemnation is counterintuitive."
