Nova Scotia man jailed after raid uncovers arsenal in rural workshop
HALIFAX — His friends and family call him a nice, generous guy with a big heart. But when police raided the rural property of a Halifax-area tradesman, they found an arsenal — and more.
Fifteen guns were seized from Donald Halpenny’s garage workshop, including three loaded handguns, along with two silencers, Kevlar body armour, a police duty belt, handcuffs and baton.
Halpenny, a 57-year-old air-conditioning and refrigeration technician, has been ordered to serve 30 months in jail by a judge who said Halpenny was likely not the simple gun collector he professed to be.
“Possession of loaded handguns together with silencers is not something one would equate with a gun hobbyist. An inference can be drawn that such possession was for nefarious purposes, not necessarily by the accused, but by others with whom he associated,” Justice Felix Cacchione said in a written Nova Scotia Supreme Court decision released Wednesday.