450-Lbs. Montreal Prisoner Set Free After Being Deemed Too Fat For Jail

There's nothing that drives some law-and-order minded Canadians to anger quite like a prisoner being released from detention before he's paid his full debt to society. So you can only imagine the reaction after a convicted drug dealer was allowed to walk free in Montreal Tuesday.

It's not that the provincial parole board is convinced that Michel Lapointe is no longer a danger to society or even that he's decided to reform. The 37-year-old was let go literally because there wasn't a jail cell that could hold him.

Lapointe weighs 450 lbs. and could no longer fit in his surroundings. The convicted criminal wasn't able to sit on the chair in his cell, and his large frame protruded six inches on either side of every bed they could find. His legs couldn't fit under the prison dining table and there was no back support in whatever seating arrangement they tried to give him.

In the end, it was deemed he was simply too fat to stay in jail and that his health was at risk.

So the Quebec Parole Board set him free, informing him he didn't even have to go to a halfway house to finish his time. Instead, he was allowed to go home.

"You have been detained for more than 25 months and your prison conditions are difficult because of your health," a letter from the Board explains. Authorities tried to place him in two different halfway houses, but they couldn't accommodate his large frame, either.

Lapointe was arrested on drug trafficking and conspiracy charges in September 2006, was convicted and given a five-year sentence just last May.

His lawyer claims his client only weighed 300 lbs. when he was detained by police but greasy prison food caused him to balloon by nearly 150 lbs. He'd like to see the menu in Canadian prisons altered to more healthy alternatives.

Meanwhile, the newly released prisoner claims he's a changed man and wants to go straight. "I'm going to have a proper bed and finally have a chair I can sit in," he told the Journal de Montreal. "I want a normal life. I've done some stupid things and I've paid for them."

It's not clear if that 'normal life' will include a change in his diet or what might happen if Lapointe can't keep to his resolve and winds up back behind bars again.