Final member of conspiracy to bribe prison guard who smuggled drugs, phones, weapons into Kent Institution sentenced to five years

Jeffrey Tkatchuk was arrested on Canadawide warrant in Saskatchewan last month, last to be sentenced along with Lucas Thiessen, Mark Majcher, and corrections officer Jason Lee

The last of the three inmates convicted in a conspiracy with a corrections officer to smuggle contraband into B.C.’s only maximum security prison was sentenced to five years jail on Monday (June 23, 2025).

Jeffrey Tkatchuk was an inmate at Kent Institution and was “central in the scheme” with fellow inmate Lucas Benjamin Thiessen, and Mark Majcher, who was not in custody, to bribe Correctional Service Canada officer Jason Kenneth Lee to smuggle illegal drugs, cellphones, tobacco and even weapons into Kent.

Lee was sentenced to five years in prison on March 7, 2025 for his part in the conspiracy for which he was paid tens of thousands of dollars by the gang-affiliated men, putting all his fellow prison guards at risk of physical harm.

Among the substances found in prison packages on Lee when he was arrested at the Popkum Tim Hortons on Sept. 21, 2023, and in two packages found at his house along with $62,000 in cash, was cocaine, methamphetamine, steroids, syringes, phones, chargers, and wall putty and sandpaper to help hide contraband in prison.

One package received by Thiessen, a notorious gangster, included throwing knives. Investigators found 95 grams of meth in his cell, which, at an institutional value of between $500 and $700 per gram was worth approximately between $47,500 and $66,500.

Crown counsel Kaitlin Kuefler described Tkachuk’s role as “instrumental” in the scheme accomplished through bribery of Lee, the corrections officer, who was the connection to Majcher on the outside.

“The problem of smuggling drugs into institutions is well-known,” Kuefler said of Tkatchuk.

“He wasn’t merely a recipient of contraband or a pawn in this scheme. He was central. It was Tkatchuk who got Majcher involved and he received packages directly from Lee himself.”

Kuefler and Tkatchuk’s lawyer Robert Dick entered an agreed statement of facts with a joint sentencing submission for five years. 

Dick said he agreed with everything presented by Crown except one element: the weapons.

“It’s cell phones, electronic accessory power cords, and drugs,” he said. 

“Mr. Tkatchuk certainly admits he was involved with the bringing in of contraband. Weapons not so much.”

Judge Michael Fortino interrupted Dick to suggest “what's good for the goose is good for the gander.”

Kuefler said the danger of these items being smuggled behind bars is “self-evident,” as one on a long list of aggravating factors at Lee’s sentencing hearing on March 7, 2025.

“[His fellow officers] were entitled to believe that he had their backs, not that he was smuggling in weapons to stab them in the back.” 

Lee was originally charged with nine offences, the other six were dropped after his sentencing. The other three, Majcher, Thiessen, and Tkatchuk, are connected to Lower Mainland gangs.

When Lee was sentenced, Thiessen remained in custody where he was serving a nearly nine-year term from 2018 when he was busted with 3.6 kilograms aof cocaine, 228 grams of fentanyl, and several weapons. 

He was sentenced for five years prison on March 3, 2025 in the Lee case. Majcher was the first sentenced to 33 months, or a global sentence of 5.5 years. 

Tkatchuk was out of custody in March and was wanted on a Canadawide warrant, thought to be in Saskatchewan where he is from. He was arrested in that province on May 3, 2025, and appeared in Chilliwack provincial court on Monday via video link from Saskatchewan.

Judge Fortino agreed to the joint sentencing of five years to be served consecutively after two years he has left to serve for other crimes.

Dick told the court a little about Tkatchuk’s background as a 39-year-old who has been addicted to drug since his mother kicked him out of the house in North Battleford as a 13-year-old.

“He has made an absolute hash of his life so far, he knows that,” Dick said.

Tkatchuk himself addressed the court via video. He stood up wearing a blue jumpsuit at a table in a room in a courthouse or the institution where he was in Saskatchewan. He spoke very quickly reading from a prepared statement saying he was sorry for what he did and that he didn’t realize how serious it was.

“This was not the plan for how I wanted to do the first half of my life and it’s certainly not how I want to do the second half.”

• Click here to read more details on the conspiracy between correctional officer Jason Lee, Jeffrey Tkatchuk, Lucas Thiessen, and Mark Majcher, including a transcript of conversations between the men on the Signal app, and detailed look at the institutional value of contraband.

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Paul J. Henderson
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