A convicted sex offender is headed back to prison after the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal found that his original sentence was improper.

Michael Lynn Wentzell was sentenced in August 2024 to four years in prison to be followed by three years of probation. The Crown appealed the sentence, arguing that the trial judge made a mistake because probation is not an option for a prison term longer than two years.

The Appeal Court agreed and substituted a sentence of six years, ordering Wentzell to return to prison. He had been out on day parole since August of last year.

One of the factors the court weighed in its deliberations was the harm the victim experienced in the original assault.

“The crime perpetrated upon a 13-year-old child had an enduring impact,” Justice Ted Scanlon wrote for the majority of the three-member appeal panel in a decision released this week.

The girl was assaulted in 1982. She told her mother who went to the police, but nothing came of the complaint at the time. She came forward again as an adult, resulting in the charge and trial in the fall of 2023. 

Wentzell, 73, has a prior conviction for sexually assaulting another young girl.

And he has been targeted in his home community of Voglers Cove, N.S., with someone shooting at his house and tagging his garage with graffiti.

The Court of Appeal decision on Wentzell was not unanimous. Justice Anne Derrick issued a dissenting opinion, saying that while she agreed the original sentence was improper, she did not feel it necessary to send Wentzell back to prison.

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