Memorial service for Emily Verge. Image by Marina Barnes
Sentencing hearing included more than an hour of emotional victim-impact statements
FORT McMURRAY, AB. — Roger Sierra will be serving 30 months behind bars after a sentencing hearing on Friday, Sept. 5, 2025. The hearing follows a guilty plea to criminal negligence causing death last June in connection with a crash that killed 24-year-old restaurant worker Emily Verge.
Justice Kent Teskey of the Court of King’s Bench said Sierra’s long history of driving convictions and his choice to operate a one-ton truck while he was medically suspended from driving due to his epilepsy made him a repeat danger to the public. The sentencing hearing lasted more than three hours, with more than an hour of emotional victim-impact statements. Teskey credited Sierra for an early guilty plea but ruled incarceration was necessary to protect the community, especially considering his lack of compliance with his driving suspension and failure to take medicine to control his condition.
Court heard Sierra was driving an F-350 owned by his employer, Green Concrete Ltd., when he crashed into the downtown Boston Pizza on Nov. 9, 2024. Verge, who was working inside, was struck by a collapsing wall and later died in the hospital. Sierra’s licence had already been revoked, and his passports, seized on arrest, remain with federal border officials. He is a permanent resident and, according to retired Justice Adam Germain, very likely to face immigration consequences following completion of his custodial sentence.
Teskey also directed a $600,000 restitution claim from Boston Pizza to civil court, where it will be handled separately.
Memorial service for Emily Verge. Image by Marina Barnes
Friends, family and co-workers described Verge as the light of every room, remembered for her laugh, her smile and her talents as both an artist and a baker. In Fort McMurray, her memory has become a symbol of kindness and joy stolen too soon. Memorials continue outside the restaurant, reminders of a community still carrying the weight of her absence.
Once Sierra completes his sentence, he may face another hurdle: deportation from Canada. Retired justice Adam Germain said federal immigration law is clear that anyone sentenced to more than six months in custody, or convicted of an indictable offence, can lose permanent residency and face removal from the country. Germain noted this consequence can weigh heavily in sentencing, since judges know a prison term of that length may trigger a second, life-altering penalty outside the criminal system.
For Sierra, the prison term marks the end of the criminal case, but Germain said the immigration process could prove a much longer and more uncertain ordeal. For Verge’s family and the community that cherished her, the legal proceedings cannot erase the loss of a young woman whose life and promise were cut short.
With files from Marina Barnes
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