Staff Report
BRANT NEWS

A Kitchener-Waterloo man will serve two years plus 11 months time served after pleading guilty to manslaughter in the stabbing death of David Paul Cronk last year.

Stephen Gerard Fitzgerald, 49, was charged with first-degree murder, but agreed to a plea deal that saw him avoid trial.

Fitzgerald was sentenced in Ontario Court on Monday morning by Judge Robert Lee, following a joint sentencing submission from defense and prosecution attorneys.

Cronk was 45 at the time of his death. He was stabbed in the groin outside his Port Street residence early on Nov. 2, 2011, during an altercation with Fitzgerald related to a crack cocaine deal.

Cronk later died of his injuries at Brantford General Hospital.

The incident represented Brantford’s second murder of 2011.

The joint sentence agreed to by lawyers recognized Fitzgerald’s role in Cronk’s death while acknowledging that problems with witness credibility and the presence of a third man at the scene might have made conviction on the original charge of first-degree murder difficult had the case gone to trial.

The sentence includes one year of probation.

Fitzgerald also received a lifetime weapons ban and he must provide a DNA sample to the national offender’s databank.