They started marching in a silent, candlelit vigil for Abdirahman Abdi just steps from his front door, where the Somali man died in police handcuffs, bleeding and facedown on a Sunday in July 2016.

Approximately 80 people, including relatives, friends, and Hintonburg neighbours, braved chilling cold to show support for Abdi’s family just days before the start of a trial for the police constable accused of manslaughter.

Dozens of people attend the vigil on Friday night, just days before the start of a trial for an Ottawa police officer in connection with the 2016 death of Abdirahman Abdi.

The polarizing case has prompted opposing sides to call for restraint and justice rather than revenge.

Some senior officers in plainclothes — including the Ottawa chief and his deputy — attended the nighttime vigil to show respect for the Abdi family and the larger community.

Bob Jamison, a street outreach worker, said he knew Abdi through his work and portrayed the 37-year-old mentally ill man as “a good guy who was harmless.”

“He had his little moments of chaos, when he was struggling, but a little support and a sandwich (and Abdi would be back on track),” said Jamison, known on the street as Bobby Jay.

Jamison said the death of Abdi had been shocking.

Dozens of people attend the vigil on Friday night, just days before the start of a trial for an Ottawa police officer in connection with the 2016 death of Abdirahman Abdi.

“It warms my heart to see this many people here,” he said.

The 10-minute march ended at Bayview Yards, where a crowd 150-strong gathered to pray and to celebrate the life of Abdi.

Just before the march began, Kitchissippi ward Coun. Jeff Leiper tried to explain the need for the vigil.

“This was a traumatizing event that was hard on the community,” Leiper said. “The upcoming trial could re-traumatize a lot of people, so we’re gathering on the eve of the trial to support one another.”

The manslaughter trial of Ottawa Police Const. Daniel Montsion is scheduled to start Monday. Abdi died after an altercation with police who were responding to multiple reports that women had been sexually assaulted inside and outside a coffee shop, including a motorist and another woman standing at a bike rack with her child.

Montsion has pleaded not guilty to manslaughter, aggravated assault and assault with a weapon. He will be represented by top defence lawyers Michael Edelson and Solomon Friedman.

Abdi died at the front door to his residence at 55 Hilda Ave. after being chased on foot by police.

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Her daughter had always asked questions, but this one made for the longest drive home.

She had been having sex with her dad and wanted to know if it was against the law. The mother said incest was indeed illegal, and, when she found photos of them engaged in sex acts, she called the police.

The 39-year-old Ottawa father was arrested last February and his 17-year-old daughter told police then that she didn’t want to press charges because “she loves her father and would like to move back in with him.”

The father, who still blames his daughter for his vile crimes, told an investigating officer: “I never forced sex on my daughter or made her touch me unwillingly.”

These disturbing details were revealed in a Jan. 24 sentencing decision by Ontario Court Justice David A. Berg, who jailed the Ottawa father for five years: four for incest and one for making child pornography.

Berg said the man’s guilty plea was a key mitigating factor because it spared the victim and her family a trial.

“A timely plea of guilt, therefore, in a matter where the Crown would otherwise have had to rely on the testimony of a vulnerable witness, is highly mitigating. Surely as a matter of public policy, we as a society wish to encourage offenders to resolve such matters without the need to have the victim publicly describe in detail the abuse to which they were subjected,” the judge said.

The convicted sex criminal had a Grade 9 education. He had been adopted at an early age after child-welfare workers seized him from his own abusive family. He never bonded with his adoptive family, according to his pre-sentence report, and ended up living on the streets by age 16.

Diagnosed with ADHD, the man had a spotty work history because he couldn’t get along with co-workers. His criminal record is more extensive than his résumé, with other convictions dating back to 1997, although none for sex offences. He has been in and out of jail for a number of crimes of dishonesty, aggravated assault, possession of a weapon and uttering threats.

In an interview with a probation officer, the man said he understood that he had destroyed his daughter’s life but still didn’t have a full grasp of the fact she was not to blame. He also claimed he didn’t know why it happened and “was not thinking like an adult, but that I am not a sexual predator.”

A forensic psychiatrist who examined the father said there was no evidence of pedophilic disorder. The doctor also said the inmate posed a moderate to high risk to commit more violent crime, but his risk for future sex crimes was “low and based only on opportunity.”

The man’s defence lawyer, Paolo Giancaterino, said: “It is my client’s hope that the guilty plea may be viewed as an acceptance of full responsibility for his actions that may assist with the healing process going forward.”

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Not every deadly crash is a crime, and the one that claimed the life of cyclist Nusrat Jahan in 2016 has been ruled a tragic accident.

On Tuesday, Ontario Court Justice David Berg acquitted Steven Conley, the driver of a dump truck who struck and killed Jahan at the busy intersection of Laurier Avenue and Lyon Street during the morning rush hour on Sept. 1, 2016.

Conley was negotiating a right turn at the intersection, and while he didn’t signal, he couldn’t see the young cyclist in his blind spot.

Berg said Conley’s driving was not the marked departure from reasonable driving standards required to assign criminal blame. Conley was acquitted on criminal negligence and dangerous driving causing death. He stood and said nothing when the judge found him not guilty.

The judge addressed Jahan’s brother — seated in the front row — telling him that while his sister’s name and details about her life were barely mentioned at the “very difficult” trial, she is far from forgotten and that the trial was about her death, not her life.

Jahan, 23, was killed on her way to class at Willis College. She had been studying at the school for less than two weeks, but had made fast friends, who were left shattered by her death. Their classes were cancelled the next day so they could pay their respects at a makeshift memorial downtown.

Jahan, whose father is an administration officer at the Bangladesh High Commission, was studying executive business administration at the college on O’Connor Street, just blocks away from the crash.

The evidence heard at trial was horrific.

The judge noted that Const. Alain Boucher’s analysis of the collision was useless, saying he could not attach it any weight in the face of significant flaws.

The Boucher report concluded that the cyclist would have been “clearly visible and unobstructed.” His colleague, Det. Greg Rhoden, came to the opposite conclusion, writing in his initial draft report that Conley could not have seen Jahan on her bike while the two were stopped at the intersection waiting for the light to change.

It should be noted that Rhoden was removed from the case for “unrelated reasons” and was not called to testify.

Const. Boucher did testify and defence lawyer Dominic Lamb handily dissected the officer’s analysis. The lawyer established in cross-examination that the officer was unaware that when he took measurements of the bike lane stop some two months after the fatal collision that the City of Ottawa had already moved the stop line back 42 centimetres in order to make it safer.

Boucher did not include his colleague’s earlier analysis in his own, and later amended his conclusion under oath, telling court at trial that Conley “may or may not have seen the cyclist.” Boucher acknowledged that re-enactment flaw and others — including the fact that he used another model that was eight years apart from the actual truck.

In his flawed re-enactment, Boucher used a four-axle City of Ottawa truck as a stand-in for the three-axle truck Conley was driving.

Boucher also failed to measure the seat height of Conley’s dump truck. The police officer also made his blind-spot measurements using the wrong height for Conley. Boucher enlisted a stand-in driver who was five-foot-seven to sit in the driver’s seat with a mounted video camera two inches above his eye line to simulate Conley’s height, which police had listed at five-foot-nine.

So while those two base measurements are off by two inches, the bigger problem was that Conley is actually five-foot-four. (He proved as much by standing up in court at trial.)

Boucher told court at trial he could not explain how he wrongly added five inches to the driver for blind spot analysis. The model they used as a stand-in for Jahan in the re-enactment also had the wrong height. The Boucher report also got the measurements wrong on Jahan’s bicycle, which they had placed at 26 inches. The bicycle actually measured 24 inches, court heard.

Boucher was called as an “expert” witness by the Crown, but the judge refused to qualify him as one.

Rhoden’s initial draft report — the one that concluded the truck driver couldn’t see the cyclist — was not disclosed to Conley’s defence team until two days before trial.

Conley, represented by top defence lawyers Lamb and Fady Mansour, walked out of the Ottawa courthouse a free man Tuesday.

“The judge’s decision confirms that this was a tragic accident,” Lamb said after the verdict.

“Mr. Conley, 40, remains devastated by Ms. Jahan’s death, and offers his condolences to her family. We believe the decision confirms that Mr. Conley drove in a prudent and careful manner on the day in question, and that the events of September 2016 were what the defence has always maintained they were: a tragic accident, unworthy of criminal prosecution.”

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Steven Conley leaves court in Ottawa on Tuesday.

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Jorden Larocque-Laplante says he was so drunk he doesn’t remember killing Abdullah Al-Tutunji outside the McDonald’s on a Sunday morning.

But after reviewing security video in court, he confessed on the stand at his second-murder trial Friday and apologized to the victim’s family.

It was him who killed Al-Tutunji, a Carleton University student known as well-raised and peaceful. He killed him with a knife, stabbing him at least nine times around 2:45 a.m. on Dec. 11, 2016.

Larocque-Laplante, 22, had taken the stand in his own defence Friday, telling a jury he couldn’t recall a single thing about killing Al-Tutunji, just 20.

The stabbing was captured on security video that was played in court. And while Larocque-Laplante maintains he blacked out, he acknowledged it’s him in the video, the man with the army knife chasing Al-Tutunji and a friend in the parking lot after an early morning fast-food run.

In an admission that silenced the courtroom, Larocque-Laplante confessed under oath.

“Yes, I admit to it,” he said under examination-in-chief by defence lawyer Mark Ertel.

The killer then apologized.

“I feel sad and (I) feel sorry for the friends and family of Abdullah Al-Tutunji. I have no idea what you guys are going through,” he said at his second-degree murder trial.

“I’m so sorry.”

Court sketch of Jorden Laroque-Laplante

He also told the jury that he pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the death. Or rather, he tried to, but the Crown attorneys refused and took it to trial with a pile of evidence, anchored in security video that shows Larocque-Laplante following his victim from the McDonald’s then confronting them outside, at one point chasing Al-Tutunji’s friend in a circle, then running into Al-Tutunji, who, moments later, falls to the ground.

He tried to plead guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter in the hope the evidence shows he may have been too drunk to know that his actions would lead to Al-Tutunji’s death, let alone to form an intent to kill. (Larocque-Laplante was more than twice the legal limit to drive.)

In the year leading up to the morning in question, Al-Tutunji’s days were much more productive than his killer’s. Al-Tutunji was studying environmental engineering at Carleton, while his killer had been unemployed for a year after getting fired as an auto-parts delivery man.

Carleton University student Abdullah Al-Tutunji

The killer spent the day of Dec. 10, 2016 just like all the rest — playing video games and watching movies. Then he wanted to go drinking; he and a buddy picked up a 28 pack of Bud and went over to an uncle’s place to watch Saturday night hockey.

He started drinking in the car, and then all game long. It was Montreal vs. Colorado and the Habs were on fire in their own barn. 10-1. Max Pacioretty had a four-goal game. Larocque-Laplante doesn’t recall a lot from that night; he had up to 17 beers (Bud and Canadian). But he does recall who was playing and that it was a high-scoring game with the Habs cleaning house.

He told court he grew up in public housing down the road from that McDonald’s near the corner of Meadowlands and Prince of Wales Drive. He had been going to that same McDonald’s all his life — thousands of times. He told court he remembers getting a drive home on Debra Road and then his last memory is getting out of his mother’s car at the Civic Hospital, where he collapsed in the front lobby. His leg was bleeding and he had cuts and bruising across his face.

He told court that he bought the army knife for car repairs, but Crown Attorney Mark Moors quickly established in cross-examination that there were no auto repairs that day.

“Can you give us any reason that you had it that day?” Moors pressed.

“No, I can’t,” Larocque-Laplante replied.

Larocque-Laplante testified he couldn’t recall a thing about the deadly stabbing.

“I can’t remember anything. I’ve tried to remember what happened but I can’t,” he told the jury.

He said it was one of his worst blackouts. He told court that he blacked out every four out of 10 nights he was drinking.

Moors also handily established that Larocque-Laplante tells different stories under oath about his addiction.

At an unsuccessful bail hearing in January 2017, he testified he thought he might have a drinking problem but on Friday said he didn’t.

The jury can either find him not guilty of second-degree murder, or guilty of second-degree murder or the lesser charge of manslaughter.

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Abdullah Al-Tutunji escaped the chaos of Iraq as a boy only to be knifed to death years later in a savage, racially-motivated attack by a drunken stranger outside the McDonald’s on Meadowlands Drive.

The 20-year-old Carleton University student was stabbed at least 11 times — with wounds to his heart, chest, torso and back — in what even his killer’s defence lawyer called a horrible, senseless tragedy in closing arguments at the second-degree murder trial of Jorden Larocque-Laplante on Wednesday.

Carleton student Abdullah Al-Tutunji was stabbed to death on Dec. 11, 2016.

Mark Ertel urged the jury to find Larocque-Laplante guilty of manslaughter because he had been too drunk to know his actions would lead to Al-Tutunji’s death, let alone to form an intent to kill. (Larocque-Laplante’s blood alcohol level was more than twice the legal limit to drive.)

Ertel asked the jury to put aside any sympathy for the slain student and consider only the facts when they deliberated his client’s fate. Ertel guided the jury through evidence in favour of the defence and noted Larocque-Laplante was so drunk that he left the bloody knife in his mother’s car minutes after the December 2016 killing.

“Any sober guy would know that’s the last thing you do,” Ertel told the jury.

“This is not a sane and sober person,” said Ertel, who told the jury that the Crown had failed to prove intent or foresight beyond a reasonable doubt.

Even if the jury decides his client was sober enough when he killed, Ertel said they should still find him guilty of manslaughter because he lost control after being kicked in the face while he was down on the ground outside the restaurant. In this situation, the jury would have to believe Larocque-Laplante killed in self-defence after being provoked in what started out as a fistfight.

Crown Attorney Mark Moors, in his closing arguments, reminded the jury it had been the killer who brought a knife to a fistfight.

The prosecutor painted a portrait of Al-Tutunji primed in sympathy.

He had escaped Iraq as a boy. Raised in a good home. Had dreams and hit the books at Carleton for environmental engineering. After a night out with friends, young Al-Tutunji, described as peaceful and caring, got knifed to death after an early-morning McDonald’s run on the way home.

He was killed before he got to eat.

Murdered, as Moors declared, in a “dark and barren” parking lot outside the McDonald’s after being chased by an angry drunk “targeting visible minorities.”

The young man will never get to realize a single dream, Moors told court.

Moors took the jury through a pile of evidence against the accused and said his defence that he blacked out just before the killing was too convenient to be believed.

The Crown attorney branded the killer’s testimony a lie designed to shield the jury from the truth: that he was a relentless aggressor who started a fight, lost it, then exacted revenge by pulling out a knife on a defenceless, unarmed Al-Tutunji in at least three vicious attacks outside the McDonald’s.

Moors noted the killer’s testimony that he was too drunk to remember served only to spare him questioning about it.

Court sketch of Jorden Laroque-Laplante

Larocque-Laplante took the stand in his own defence and confessed to the killing after reviewing security video in court. He apologized to the victim’s family, saying he had no idea what they were going through. “I’m so sorry,” he told court.

The Crown attorney noted his apology was not evidence, no matter how sad or sorry.

The police evidence, the prosecutor said, pointed to only one verdict: guilty of murder.

The killer was perfectly fine to walk, talk, text, fight, seek medical treatment afterwards, so he was clearly not only sober enough, but his mind was also laced with intent when he savagely murdered Al-Tutunji, the Crown attorney told the jury.

“There is powerful evidence (that the accused) was possessed of anger and vengeance,” Moors told the jury.

The trouble began just after 2:30 a.m. on Dec. 11, 2016, when Larocque-Laplante walked into the McDonald’s after a night of hard drinking. He started yelling Arabic names when he saw the victim and his friend. (The killer testified he used to think it was funny to yell Arabic names at Middle Eastern folks, but no longer thought it was funny after converting to Islam at the Ottawa jail.)

Al-Tutunji and his friend had just received their takeout and were heading home. He had enough and dismissed the annoying drunk, saying, “Shut the f— up.”

That set off the killer, who chased both individuals outside and started what the Crown described as a bar-room brawl that began with muscle and braun and left the challenger on the ground, angry for losing. That was when he pulled out a knife and attacked Al-Tutunji at least three times. Al-Tutunji was already on the ground during some of the savage knife attacks captured on security video.

He was seen clutching his chest and falling to his knees during the repeated knife attacks. His friend was seen trying to come to his dying friend’s aid, only to be chased at knifepoint.

The victim’s parents and sister sat in the front row of the court gallery Wednesday as the prosecutor again showed the final moments of Al-Tutunji’s life.

The prosecutor did a fine job of leaving the jury with a portrait of a slain student who was bright and too young to die. Just a young university student with big dreams that will never be realized, Moors told the jury.

Moors told the jury to reject the defence’s position, saying the killer’s story was not worthy of belief. The prosecutor told the jury the only just verdict was second-degree murder.

Larocque-Laplante tried to plead guilty to manslaughter, but the Crown refused and took it to trial.

Minutes after Larocque-Laplante killed a stranger, he went to his mom’s to get her to drive him to the hospital for a bleeding leg wound. It was self-inflicted during the deadly fight, and Larocque-Laplante collapsed in the hospital lobby. (The defence told the jury the self-inflicted wound was clear evidence of extreme intoxication, that he was so drunk he stabbed himself in the killing he said he couldn’t remember.

The trial judge is expected to finish her charge to the jury on Thursday, and jurors will then start deliberating the fate of Larocque-Laplante.

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In her last moments of life, Susan Kuplu demanded her daughter kill her, according to the working police theory on how and why Lennese Kublu allegedly knifed her mother to death. 

According to the theory, since adopted by prosecutors, the trouble began on Jan. 10 when the teen girl got into an argument with her mom. At the height of the argument, Kuplu, 37, told her daughter to kill her. And then, police believe, Lennese, 18, was given a knife by her boyfriend, Dwight Brown, 29, to fulfill her mother’s bloody death wish.

Police believe young Lennese killed her mother at their public-housing rowhouse on Penny Drive in the city’s west end and left her dead for a day before she helped Brown wrap her body in a blanket only to toss it in a dumpster.

Lennese and Brown are both charged with second-degree murder and an indignity to a dead body. They are both in jail awaiting trial, and in the teen girl’s case, a much-anticipated bail hearing. Unlike her older boyfriend, she’s never previously been arrested. In fact, according to defence lawyers and her family, she doesn’t understand the difference between guilty and not guilty, and has long been considered vulnerable.

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After a two-week gruelling search, Ottawa police recently took an “operational pause” from searching for Kuplu’s body. They remain focused on the Trail Road dump, and according to Kuplu’s family in Igloolik, Nunavut, police have told them they won’t stop looking until they find her. The search was to resume Wednesday but was pushed to Thursday morning because of the snowstorm that levelled Ottawa midweek. 

In a court appearance via video from the Innes Road jail earlier this week, Lennese trembled and appeared confused by the proceedings. Her defence lawyer Diane Condo told court she was outraged by a homicide detective’s actions, claiming the cop interviewed her vulnerable Indigenous client at the jail without any notification, or rights to counsel, in a locked room billed as a professional visit, all facilitated by jail guards. 

Left to right, Dwight Brown, Lennese Kublu, middle, and Susan Kuplu. Facebook photo.

She called it outrageous and Assistant Crown Attorney Matthew Humphreys told the justice of the peace not to consider his silence on the allegations as acceptance. The prosecutor said he didn’t know the details and simply had no comment. Condo also noted that her client, who has a Grade 10 education, has been in jail since Jan. 24 and she still has yet to get disclosure — including the recordings from police interviews with the teen at headquarters and the jail.

While Kuplu’s body remains missing, a text sent from her phone in late November may provide some insight into what was happening in her home in the weeks before she was allegedly killed. 

The Nov. 24 text to a relative indicates Kuplu didn’t want to go home.

“What happened?” the relative asked.

“(Lennese’s) boyfriend beat me up last night, And I didn’t accept the fact he’s trying to control (my daughter) and I …. I trashed the whole living room last night after they left the house. I don’t deserve his f—— treatment,” the reply read. 

This newspaper read those texts to Brown’s defence lawyer, James Harbic, who was unable to comment, saying he has yet to receive any disclosure of the victim’s texts, or any videos of Lenesse’s interviews with detectives at headquarters and later at the jail.

Speaking to this newspaper, Lise Kuplu recalled her closest sister as a loving woman who hit hard times after their father died three years ago.

“She loved her family and all of her kids very much,” her sister said.

She said her sister called daily just to tell her family she was grateful and she loved them.

Her sister said she got a call from her niece after the homicide allegedly occurred, saying she feared for her life.

Lennese, and her mother, moved to Ottawa years ago when her grandfather came to the city for cancer treatment.

“She’s a very good kid,” her aunt said.

Her aunt is still grieving the death of her sister but is fully supporting her niece and has offered to act as a surety if she’s granted bail.

Her lawyer hopes she can win bail for her teen client.

“She’s an impressionable, vulnerable, young 18-year-old girl. She’s scared. She’s never been in the system and has no idea what’s going on,” Condo told this newspaper.

By all accounts, Lennese had a rough childhood, steeped in booze and violence.

Her life lately also appears to have been troubled, with her boyfriend charged for allegedly assaulting her in late December after an argument about having a child together. Brown faces a charge of assault causing bodily harm for that alleged offence. He also faces drug trafficking charges after police allegedly seized crack cocaine from him when he was arrested for Kuplu’s slaying. 

None of the allegations against Brown or Lennese has been proven in court. 

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In the end, Jorden Larocque-Laplante’s story that he was so drunk he couldn’t remember killing Abdullah Al-Tutunji was too convenient and unworthy of belief.

Larocque-Laplante, 22, was found guilty Friday of second-degree murder in the drunken, racially-motivated knife attack outside a McDonald’s restaurant on Meadowlands Drive on Dec. 11, 2016. His head sunk when the jury returned the guilty verdict and his family dabbed at tears.

Al-Tutunji, a 20-year-old Carleton University student, was stabbed at least 11 times in a savage attack by an angry racist bent on revenge after he was dismissed inside the restaurant as an annoying drunk. He had escaped the chaos of Iraq only to meet an awful, untimely death in the restaurant’s darkened parking lot after a night out with friends.

The killer’s lawyer called the killing horrible and senseless.

The victim’s family — still shattered — hopes the killer will one day understand their pain.

Abdullah Al-Tutunji was stabbed to death in the parking lot of a Meadowlands Drive restaurant in December 2016.

In a moving victim-impact statement, Tuleen Al-Tutunji said she could stand and talk about her big brother forever. He was reserved, intelligent and kind, that older brother who always looked out for her.

“He was always there protecting me from anything and anyone,” she told court.

His family still remembers him vividly and they’ll never forget his laugh, the one that could light up a room.

She then addressed the killer, saying he had deprived their world of her brother’s laughter.

“You deprived him of his life for no reason. You deprived him of his family and friends for no reason. You stole him away from his dreams, ambitions and future for no reason. You took him away from us,” she said.

“I pray that one day you understand the pain you have caused, to fully grasp what it feels like to have your son, daughter, sibling, best friend, and other half be taken away from you in a heartbeat, in such a way that is so vicious and senseless,” she said on behalf of the family.

The family has tried hard to cope and distract themselves best they can, she said. “It has not been any easier and we don’t know if it will ever be.”

Larocque-Laplante had take the stand in his own defence at trial, telling the jury he couldn’t recall a single thing about killing Al-Tutunji.

The stabbing was captured on security video that was played in court. While Larocque-Laplante maintained he blacked out, he acknowledged he was the man in the video with the army knife chasing Al-Tutunji and a friend in the parking lot.

He confessed on the stand and apologized to the victim’s family.

The victim and his killer had polar-opposite positions in life. Al-Tutunji was studying environmental engineering at Carleton, while his unemployed killer spent his days and nights playing video games, watching movies and drinking.

Crown Attorneys Mark Moors and Robert Thomson dismantled the defence and established that the killer had been able to walk, talk, text, fight, kill and seek medical treatment afterwards while in his so-called black-out drunk stage.

Moors told the jury the killer was possessed of anger and vengeance.

A court sketch of Jorden Laroque-Laplante, whose lawyer said that his client would appeal the jury’s guilty verdict on a charge of second-degree murder.

The trouble began just after 2:30 a.m. on Dec. 11, 2016, when Larocque-Laplante walked into the McDonald’s after a night of hard drinking. He started yelling Arabic names when he saw the victim and his friend.

Al-Tutunji and his friend had just received their takeout and were heading home. He dismissed the annoying drunk, saying, “Shut the f— up.”

That set off the killer, who chased both individuals outside and started what the Crown described as a bar-room brawl that left the challenger on the ground, angry for losing. That was when he pulled out a knife and attacked Al-Tutunji at least three times. Al-Tutunji was already on the ground during some of the attacks captured on security video.

He was seen clutching his chest and falling to his knees during the attacks. His friend is seen trying to come to his dying friend’s aid, only to be chased at knifepoint.

Larocque-Laplante tried to plead guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter, saying he was too drunk to form intent to kill, but the Crown rejected the offer and took it to trial.

“Mr. Larocque-Laplante is devastated by the jury verdict and will consider an appeal,” defence lawyer Mark Ertel said.

Al-Tutunji’s family thanked the prosecutors and police after the verdict.

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Jason Sawyer, a 21-year-old former Carleton University student, sat outside Courtroom No. 12 on Thursday reading a book next to his mom, who was also reading a paperback. They had time to kill because court was running late. The tall and bearded Sawyer is a criminology student, but his 9 a.m. appointment in court had nothing to do with his studies.

Sawyer was there to plead guilty to a most vile crime — child porn. The disgraced student, wearing a black tuque, stood before Ontario Court Justice Matthew Webber and pleaded guilty to possession of child porn.

Sawyer was one of six Ottawa men charged in late December when police across Ontario did a sweep and laid 551 charges in one month. It’s just the tip of the iceberg, police said at the time.

Sawyer admitted guilt right away and directed police to more images on his phone. In November 2018, Ottawa police raided his home and seized the student’s laptop and external hard drive. In all, police found 14,599 images of child-sex crimes and 2,296 videos.

In disturbing online chats with undercover police in Switzerland, Sawyer said he was sexually attracted to children. Swiss police knew he had child porn because they downloaded it from his online server. The tip was forwarded to police in Ontario and Ottawa’s ICE unit mounted a successful case with a full and clean confession from Sawyer, who has already begun treatment.

“Mr. Sawyer is very remorseful for his actions. He has begun treatment and is committed to ensuring that he never comes before the criminal courts again,” said Joseph Addelman, his defence lawyer.

Sawyer is out on bail awaiting sentencing. Before that happens, he has to have a sex-behaviour assessment and a pre-sentence report, which is drafted by a probation officer who interviews people in the child-sex criminal’s life.

Webber told Sawyer it’s important to fully co-operate in the assessments so he can learn as much about him as he can before he passes a sentence to what he called a serious crime.

The case against Sawyer was led by Assistant Crown Attorney Carl Lem, who read out an agreed statement of facts in court. Sawyer is no longer studying at Carleton and remains out on bail under conditions that have him living with his mom in St. Thomas, Ont.

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It was the cops, not his conscience, that caught up with Deinsberg St-Hilaire.

Hilaire, 42, had no intention of turning himself in for the June 28, 2015 hit-and-run that killed Andy Nevin, who was riding a bike along Leitrim Road.

In fact, while Nevin’s family — including his two sons — was making funeral plans, St-Hilaire was covering his tracks in a most calculated way. He tarped the truck that was all over the news, had it repaired and took it to the car wash. St-Hilaire also went into hiding and checked in at a motel out by the airport.

Ottawa police detectives worked the case around the clock and had St-Hilaire under surveillance before arresting him nine days later. For the family of Nevin, 39, they were long, horrible days.

Kerry Nevin, left, with son Andy Nevin, who was struck in a hit-and run and left to die on the side of Leitrim Road on June 28, 2015.

St-Hilaire was found not guilty of dangerous driving causing death in November by Ontario Superior Court Justice Catherine Aitken, who called it a circumstantial case. The judge cleared him after hearing evidence that St-Hilaire had been driving 80 kilometres an hour in a 50 zone.

He got behind the wheel of a F-250 Ford pickup after being awake for 22 hours. It was just before 6 a.m. and St-Hilaire was on his way home from a wedding after-party. Not just any wedding — it was his brother’s, and St-Hilaire was the best man. He testified that he drank one glass of wine that entire night.

Though he was cleared of driving causing death and leaving the scene, St-Hilaire pleaded guilty to obstructing the police investigation by covering his tracks.

So while the judge acquitted him in the death, she accepted his guilty plea for destroying evidence to cover up the crime and, on Monday, Nevin’s grieving family read tearful victim-impact statements at the sentencing hearing for St-Hilaire. It was the first chance they had to speak in court after three years of what they described as life-altering pain.

They called St-Hilaire a “heartless monster” and asked how he sleeps at night.

They said they wished he had owned up, rather than covered up.

Assistant Crown Attorney Lisa Miles called St-Hilaire’s coverup a shameful act. The prosecutor told the judge that St-Hilaire should have taken responsibility and reminded the court that Nevin’s death and the trial has left his family broken. Miles also noted that St-Hilaire’s regret and remorse was plentiful long after the fact. She said everyone has a certain responsibility and that St-Hilaire had failed in his, choosing instead to hide his involvement. “It’s not who we are as a community,” Miles said.

Kerry Nevin, who has fought for justice every step of the way for his dead son, also read a victim-impact statement.

“Andy had a big heart, loved his family, especially his two sons,” he told court.

“I hope that when your time comes, that you rot in hell,” he concluded.

The grieving father’s victim-impact statement was four pages but Aitken only allowed him to read parts of it — he told court parts got “trashed” because it was the truth.

And when Aitken — the same trial judge who acquitted St-Hilaire in Nevin’s death — assured the victim’s family that she has “all kinds of sympathy” for them, the victim’s father replied loudly from his seat in the gallery of the Elgin Street courthouse.

“I don’t know how you can even face my family,” Kerry Nevin shot back at the judge.

All court proceedings — from St-Hilaire’s first appearance to Monday’s — have been tense. There were four police officers on guard at the sentencing hearing Monday.

The most moving victim-impact statement came from Andy Nevin’s youngest son, Bryce, who stood composed as he detailed his darkest hour. The day he found out his father was killed he sat out in the driving rain for hours. He told court he had been robbed of a solid father and that he now feels empty.

He said no one should have to endure what he will “deal with for the rest of my life.”

Nevin’s son told court his family was relieved to finally move out of the projects, and the next day his father had been killed.

Bryce used to love playing soccer. His dad was his biggest and loudest fan. Bryce hasn’t kicked a ball around in years because it reminds him that his father isn’t around.

“He was my best friend, and you’re the one who took him away from me,” Bryce told court as he glanced over at St-Hilaire before walking out of court.

St-Hilaire also stood in court Monday and told his sentencing hearing that he was sorry.

He is expected to be sentenced later this year. No date has been scheduled.

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Exhausted and crying, Lennese Kublu, 18, kept telling the Ottawa detective she didn’t want to talk or answer questions about the Jan. 10 killing of her mother in the townhouse they shared on Penny Drive.

She did so 60 times during a police interview, according to sources close to the investigation. She asked to leave, but they wouldn’t let her. Nor would they let her speak with a lawyer.

The detective questioned the Inuk teen for nine and a half hours on Jan. 25 at police headquarters.

At one point, she cried for an hour straight while the detective kept asking questions.

At the end of it, she could no longer speak and was sick to her stomach. She threw up in a trash can. Only then, did detectives let her go back to her cell in the bowels of the police station.

“It felt like torture,” the teen later told her lawyer.

Her mother — Susan Kuplu — was stabbed to death in her own home on Jan. 10. Lennese Kublu, and her accused drug-dealer boyfriend, Dwight Brown, 29, have been charged with second-degree murder. The daughter’s surname is spelled differently than her mother’s.

The trouble began, police allege, when Lennese got into an argument with her mother. At the height of the argument, Susan, 37, was knifed to death. Police say her body was left in the family’s rowhouse for a day before it was wrapped in blanket and tossed into a dumpster.

More than a month later, police found Susan Kuplu’s body at the Trail Road dump.

Lennese, who has no criminal record, is in jail awaiting bail. According to those close to her, she’s confused about what is happening. She has a Grade 9 education and English is her second language. Her family has long considered her vulnerable, and lately, under the control of her boyfriend, who was charged with beating her up two weeks before the killing.

Lennese’s questioning — 16 hours in all — is expected to be vigorously contested in court, as it was at a recent court appearance. Defence lawyer Diane Condo said she intends to file Charter applications.

“There was a total disregard of the rights of this young, vulnerable Indigenous woman,” Condo said. “She’s scared. She’s never been in the system and has no idea what’s going on.”

At a recent court appearance via video from the Innes Road jail, Lennese trembled and appeared confused by the proceedings. Condo told court she was outraged by a homicide detective’s actions, claiming the detective interviewed her client at the jail without any notification, or rights to counsel, in a locked room billed as a professional visit, all facilitated by jail guards.

This newspaper has obtained a text message sent from Susan Kuplu’s phone in late November that may provide some insight into what was going on at the family’s home in the weeks before she was killed. 

The Nov. 24 text to a relative indicates the elder Kuplu didn’t want to go home.

“What happened?” the relative asked.

“(Lennese’s) boyfriend beat me up last night, And I didn’t accept the fact he’s trying to control (my daughter) and I …. I trashed the whole living room last night after they left the house. I don’t deserve his f—— treatment,” the reply read. 

Lise Kuplu remembers her closest sister as a loving woman who fell on hard times after their father died three years ago.

“She loved her family and all of her kids very much,” Lise said.

She said Susan called daily just to tell her family she was grateful and she loved them.

Lise said she received a call from her niece after the homicide is alleged to have occurred, saying she feared for her life.

Lennese and her mother moved to Ottawa years ago, when her grandfather came to the city for cancer treatment.

“She’s a very good kid,” Lise said.

Lise Kuplu is still grieving the death of her sister, but is fully supporting her niece and has offered to act as a surety if she’s granted bail.

By all accounts, Lennese had a difficult childhood steeped in booze and violence.

Her life more recently also appears to have been troubled. Her boyfriend was charged with assaulting her in late December after an argument about having a child together. Brown faces a charge of assault causing bodily harm in that alleged incident. He also faces drug trafficking charges after police allegedly seized crack cocaine from him when he was arrested in connection with Susan Kuplu’s death. 

None of the allegations against Brown or Lennese Kublu has been proven in court. Ottawa Police would not comment because the case against Kublu is before the courts.

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Khaled Farhan, dubbed The Butcher of Gatineau by the press in 1999 after killing and then dismembering his lover days later, has won parole with the hopes of starting a new, quiet life as a transgender woman at an undisclosed halfway house.

Farhan, now 46 and legally named Zahra Farhan, was found guilty in 2000 for the second-degree murder of her live-in girlfriend Karina Janveau, 24.

After a hearing in January, Farhan was granted day parole for six months to help her reintegrate into society.

Farhan, who now has a visual impairment, wants to get a Seeing Eye dog and devote her life to helping the blind and transgender community, according to parole documents.

“You are assessed as a low to low end of moderate risk for both general and violence recidivism,” the parole board wrote of Farhan, whose brutal killing and mutilation of Janveau nearly 20 years ago shocked the national capital region.

Karina Janveau.

In her short life, Janveau had more than her fair share of hardship — and that was before she met Farhan. Her parents divorced when she was nine, her mother killed herself at Christmas, she had a partially paralyzed leg, a crippled arm and a drug habit.

In all of this, Janveau was described by family and friends as generous and loving.

Janveau had only been with Farhan for a year. It was a volatile relationship that ended in murder.

Some nights Farhan left her bruised. Other nights Farhan threatened to kill her, according to witness testimony at trial.

In her final moments of life, Farhan subjected her to an uncontrollable, cocaine-fuelled rage. Farhan attacked her and then killed her.

She lay dead in their basement apartment for days and when the smell became impossible to ignore — neighbours were complaining — Farhan started cutting up the body with a kitchen knife because he figured it would be easier to get rid of it in pieces. It took him two hours to cut up the corpse in the bathtub. (He showed no emotion as he detailed the gruesome deed on the stand at trial.)  An autopsy confirmed that Farhan also stabbed her multiple times after she was dead.

To conceal the crime, Farhan tossed half of the corpse and the right arm in a dumpster a few metres from their basement apartment. Farhan stuffed the other half of the body in a duffel bag and dumped it a few hundred metres away in a field by railway tracks off Maloney Boulevard in Gatineau, where Farhan had moved two months earlier from Ottawa.

After the killing, Farhan presented himself for local television stations as a worried husband pleading for the public’s help to find his missing common-law spouse. Farhan lied a lot in those days, telling newspaper and TV reporters that he last saw Janveau leaving for a camping trip with a so-called dangerous drug dealer.

Farhan’s attempts to deceive were futile. The police arrested him right after a building superintendent discovered some of the discarded body parts in a dumpster.

One of the first Gatineau police officers on the grisly scene was Sgt. Guylaine Larose, who stared at the bloody, decomposed body long enough for it to haunt. She was looking at what was left of her younger sister.

Sgt. Larose was too distraught to work at the time but summoned the courage to sit through every day of a six-week trial that sent her sister’s killer to prison. She cried out in joy when the jury returned with a guilty verdict.

In an interview with the Citizen after the trial, Sgt. Larose said her sister’s murder haunted her day and night. Larose was popular among cops, as well as crime reporters, who called her several times a day in the late 1990s for news. She was always friendly and had a warm smile.

The police officer later killed herself with a service revolver at home.

After Farhan’s conviction, she was sent to a men’s prison, where she spent some time in solitary confinement. According to prison files, she was put in solitary confinement in 2010 after sending sexually inappropriate letters to guards.

Farhan was also placed in solitary confinement at her own request after she expressed a fear for her life because she identified as a trans woman. Farhan had no problems after being transferred to a women’s prison.

Farhan’s parole conditions require her to live at a halfway house, abstain from drugs and booze, and report any relationships she enters.

However, Farhan told the parole board she has “no intentions of being in a relationship” as she wishes to focus on herself.

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Richard and Geovanni Ellis stood in Ottawa court last month and braced for another fight to finally clear their names in a violent and bloody 2012 home invasion that targeted a reputed drug dealer and one-time pimp.

Richard, 34, and brother Geovanni, 26, stood and pleaded not guilty, only for the Crown, without calling a single witness and saying it had no reasonable prospect of conviction, to ask Ontario Superior Court Justice Kevin Phillips for a stay, which he granted right away.

After a seven-year trip through the criminal justice system, the Ellis brothers, who make their living in construction, were free to go about their lives, on Feb. 19. The Crown did not respond for comment on this story.

It was not the brothers’ first time in court. In fact, they were found guilty in 2013 in the home-invasion case only to have their convictions overturned in 2018 after the appeal court ruled that the judge’s lengthy questioning of defence witnesses and instructions to the jury revealed that he was so biased against the Ellis brothers that it prejudiced their right to a fair trial.

“The record shows that the trial judge questioned defence witnesses and charged the jury in a manner that evinced his disbelief in the defence theory of the case. In my view, the cumulative effect of the trial judge’s interventions, and comments in his charge, prejudiced the appellants’ right to a fair trial,” the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled in a decision released in May 2018.

“The tenor of the trial judge’s questions could leave a reasonable person with no other impression except that the trial judge did not believe the defence witnesses. Indeed, it appeared that the trial judge viewed their evidence as incredible.”

The appeal court said that Ontario Superior Court Justice Albert Roy was anything but impartial when it came to defence witnesses, and improperly called upon two of them to give explanations for the evidence of others, “undoubtedly leaving the impression that such explanations were not forthcoming because the other witnesses were telling the truth.”

The judge was also criticized for ad libbing his instructions to the jury before they went into deliberation — even though the charge to the jury had already been reviewed by defence lawyers and the Crown. Still, the judge went off script and added his own commentary on the fly in what the appeal court said was a risky step that should have been avoided.

“Richard is relieved that the case is over,” said his lawyer, John Hale, after the new trial ended before it began. “He has steadfastly maintained his innocence since the day of his arrest. He was found guilty in 2013 after a seriously flawed trial that was overturned on appeal. He spent some three years in a penitentiary for a crime that he did not commit.

“After all this time, a stay of proceedings is of very little consolation to Richard. It does not adequately clear his name, nor does it assist him in moving forward in life. This was a bittersweet victory.”

Dominique Smith, defence lawyer for Geovanni Ellis, said: “My client steadfastly maintained his innocence throughout a multi-year process which came to an abrupt and unexpected end.”

The brothers had been accused of a violent home-invasion in Overbrook targeting a reputed drug dealer and one-time pimp. His three children were home when men stormed in demanding drugs and money. Their target was pistol-whipped, slashed with a knife and later tied up with a telephone cable.

The invasion was foiled after a friend hiding in the house called 911. Ottawa police surrounded the house, made quick arrests and found a loaded handgun in the basement.

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Robert Lavergne is not like the other teachers at St. Patrick’s Catholic High School.

He’s an auto shop teacher, 55 years old — the one who hugged the girls as they walked into his class.

Lavergne also bought his favourite students gifts, including a charm bracelet. He gave them clothes and brought in his wife’s home-cooked meals for his lunch club to feed “the poor kids.”

He was the teacher who met teen girls at the auto shop on weekends. The kids had his cell number because he gave it to them.

And he was the teacher who had a “relax” spot in a storage room with a futon and a scented candle.

Lavergne also started an after-school welding club just for girls to make them feel more comfortable and show them it’s not a man’s world.

Two of his former students testified earlier this week at his sexual assault trial that they felt anything but comfortable around him.

In fact, Lavergne is accused of grabbing, groping and squeezing the teen girls and subjecting them to lewd, degrading comments like “dirty girl” and “if her age is on the clock, she’s ready for the c—.”

Lavergne took the stand in his own defence Friday, denying all allegations.

During examination-in-chief by his lawyer Erin Dann, the teacher denied everything. He said he didn’t grope buttocks on a daily basis, didn’t comment on students’ bodies and didn’t talk about his own sex life or orgasms in class.

“Have you ever had your face between her legs for any reason and said nice view?” his lawyer asked.

“No,” the teacher replied under oath.

Lavergne testified that he was “shocked” by the allegations because he thought he had a good relationship with the students who accused him of sexual assault from 2015 to 2018.

Lavergne did admit to touching — not massaging — girls’ shoulders in class to get their attention and once to “swatting” a girl’s bottom after she slapped him on his behind as a joke, he said. He told court on Friday that he immediately apologized afterward and, in his words, she was fine with it.

Lavergne has been suspended without pay as he awaits his fate at the judge-alone trial presided by Ontario Court Justice Catharine Kehoe.

Lavergne’s girls-only, after-hours welding club was publicized on CBC’s Ottawa Morning show in 2017, with the teacher telling the popular show that the “ladies” are “more comfortable in here … Sometimes some of the ladies might be intimidated, thinking it is only a man’s world in the tech world and automotive welding, and stuff like that.”

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When Cameron Lyons wasn’t volunteering as equipment manager for the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees, he was targeting teen girls as young as 14 under the guise of recruiting them as models and high-priced escorts for a website called “Golden Girls of Ottawa.”

But there were no clients, no money and no modelling gigs for one of his victims — just a motel room in Vanier where he raped her on videotape.

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Lyons, 41, was recently sentenced to eight years in prison after pleading guilty last year to a dozen criminal charges — including sexual assault, extortion, criminal harassment, child luring and attempting to traffic a person under 18. His child-sex crimes went on for a decade until he was arrested in an undercover Ottawa police sting at the Rideau Centre where Lyons thought he was about to meet his next victim.

He also blackmailed some of his victims and used their photographs to advertise them as sex workers online.

At his sentencing, Lyons thanked the police for catching him.

“Mr. Lyons gave a heartfelt apology to his victims and even to the investigating officer whom he credited for catching him and allowing him to begin the long process of dealing with his issues to make sure he never causes similar pain to anyone else again,” said his defence lawyer Oliver Abergel.

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It was Jan. 16, 2018, and Ottawa police Const. Marcel Allen, coming up on 25 years on the job, was acting on suspicion and impulse when he burst into a family’s east-end home to confront a teen he thought was dealing weed.

Allen flashed his badge and quickly identified himself as a police officer.

Only Allen wasn’t there on police business but rather to confront a teen he thought was dealing marijuana to his own son. Allen had no search warrant and was armed with a large kitchen knife. He wasn’t brandishing it but rather holding its handle, the blade concealed in a bag.

The family, startled and scared by the intruder, demanded that he get out of their house. Police were called and they arrested one of their own.

On Wednesday, Allen pleaded guilty to unlawful entry to a dwelling and apologized, saying he made a serious mistake.

“My intent was not danger,” the officer told Ontario Court Justice Peter Griffiths.

In a joint position by his defence lawyer Bruce Engel and assistant Crown attorney Janet O’Brien, Allen was sentenced to a conditional discharge in exchange for a guilty plea to unlawful entry. This means the police officer will be spared a criminal record if he doesn’t break the law in the next 12 months.

Allen, 51, must report to a probation officer and continue his therapy, according to the court-approved deal in which government prosecutors agreed to drop charges of uttering threats and possession of a weapon.

O’Brien, the prosecutor, noted aggravating factors, saying the guilty man is a police officer. “He simply should have known better,” O’Brien told court.

Defence lawyer Bruce Engel told court that Allen, off-duty at the time, was acting on impulse out of concern for his son.

Allen is not allowed within 100 metres of the victims, their house, employment, school or anywhere they gather, except if the police officer is a “spectator at a sporting event,” according to the court order.

The judge made the exception so Allen can watch his son play football. Allen thanked the judge, saying “that would be a great advantage to my life.”

“My client is significantly relieved,” Engel said after the court hearing. “This has been a stressor for the last year that’s been hanging around his head. He is satisfied with the end result and can move forward.”

After his arrest last year, Allen told this newspaper he felt mistreated by fellow officers and he railed against police Chief Charles Bordeleau.

At his guilty plea on Wednesday, he stood up and said he’s seen the “good and the bad” and has had time to reflect on the “brotherhood of officers.”

Allen has found it hard to keep his cool. At a court appearance last year, he threatened a Citizen photographer taking his picture. He swatted repeatedly at her camera, saying he would “knock it out” of her hands, according to a story by this newspaper’s crime and police reporter Shaamini Yogaretnam.

While this was the first criminal case against  Allen, he has a history of internal discipline.

In 2013, he was docked 24 hours’ pay and was told to attend mandatory training after he had approached a civilian employee in 2012 and “put his arm around her neck.” The actions were not welcomed by the woman and a disciplinary hearing found they were “clearly inappropriate” and an “embarrassment” to the police force.

In 2006, Allen was demoted for six months after he crashed his personal vehicle into a construction fence on Metcalfe Street  while driving without insurance in 2005. He fled the scene without reporting the collision.

And in 2004, Allen accidentally fired a his sidearm in the police locker-room. He was docked a day’s pay for that.

Allen remains on the force and is no longer suspended with pay.

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Moments after blazing a terrifying trail behind the wheel of a stolen van that crashed into two cars, only to speed onto the University of Ottawa pedestrian walkway and nearly hit several students as they ran for their lives, the driver begged responding police officers to kill him.

“Just shoot me, I want to die,” the driver told arresting officers on Wednesday at 3:58 p.m.

Marc-André Fournier, 36, was arrested at gunpoint on Lees Avenue after a Good Samaritan named Jamel Hines found him hiding behind a structure, according to police. Hines, just 18, is a police foundations student at Algonquin College.

“Honestly, I don’t know why I got involved. Second nature I suppose. Just the right thing to do,” Hines said in an interview with this newspaper on Thursday.

Ottawa police described Wednesday’s harrowing events as a 15-minute rampage that had several panicked students running out of the path of a speeding Dodge Caravan that had been stolen from the corner of Nelson and Rideau streets minutes before.

The driver sped off in the stolen van going west on Rideau Street. He side-swiped a Ford Focus and then rear-ended it as he fled the scene at high speed, according to police.

The driver then continued west on Rideau, only now in the wrong lane, driving fast against oncoming traffic. He then went up King Edward Avenue in the southbound lane, speeding and veering through traffic, according to police witnesses. Then he turned right on Laurier Avenue East and started swerving between lanes, still speeding.

When the driver turned left onto Cumberland Street, the van’s tires were screeching and the driver appeared to be barely keeping control of the van, according to police and online videos captured by witnesses.

The erratic, out-of-control van caused further panic when it sped onto the University of Ottawa campus. The driver took a right turn onto University Avenue and hit a Kia Spectra head-on. (There were no reported injuries).

The driver then took off west on University Avenue before stopping and turning around. Students were in a state of panic and running for their lives, as shown on university security video reviewed by police.

Jamel Hines, right, with police officers after helping police in their pursuit of the suspect arrested on Wednesday after a stolen van rampaged through the University of Ottawa neighbourhood, colliding with multiple vehicles.

Now heading east at high speed, the driver drove onto the pedestrian walkway on University Private, nearly hitting several students scrambling to get out of the van’s path. (This scene of panicked students was captured on university security video.)

The heavily-damaged van then headed east on Marie Curie Private, barrelling toward a red light, which the van sped through, nearly crashing into another car. The van then broke down, and the bloodied driver got out, according to an eyewitness interviewed by this newspaper.

Car was struck head-on by a stolen van at UOttawa campus. Jon Willing/Postmedia

Hines, the Good Samaritan, was standing with his mother at an OC Transpo bus stop on Lees Avenue waiting for Route 98. Hines heard a loud noise and saw a van stop in a construction site. He then saw the driver stumble out of the van. Hines said he videotaped the man only to be confronted by the bloodied driver.

“He got into my face,” Hines recalled.

The driver allegedly threatened to kill Hines for recording him.

They were so close, Hines said, he could smell alcohol on the man’s breath.

“I could smell it. He was not minty fresh, for sure,” Hines recalled.

When the bus arrived, the suspect pushed Hine’s mom out of the way to board the bus. Hines and his mom then boarded the bus to warn the driver about the man, who then got off the bus and started running.

Hines stayed on the bus until the next stop, keeping an eagle eye on the man. He spotted him hiding behind a structure, got off the bus and walked back to confirm it was the same man who stumbled out of the van.

Again, the man got into his face for recording him, Hines said.

Moments later, as police arrested Fournier at gunpoint, Fournier allegedly asked officers to kill him.

This newspaper has also learned that Fournier allegedly threatened to kill one of the responding officer’s family. In the threat, the suspect, while in a cell, named the officer by his last name and allegedly threatened to kill his family.

One of the damaged vehicles on the main university campus as police deal with a stolen van that was driven erratically around the Ottawa University campus causing significant damage and was later captured. Photo by Wayne Cuddington/ Postmedia

As for Hines, he’s presented himself in all of this as modest. Just doing the right thing, he said.

Several police officers have praised Hines for his help, he said.

“It was such a rush. I honestly believe I will love the job when I get there,” Hines said.

The aspiring police officer also heaped praise on responding officers, saying he has the utmost respect for people who put their lives on the line to keep others safe.

Fournier has been charged with theft of a motor vehicle, possession of property obtained by crime over $5,000, dangerous driving, failing to stop at the scene of an accident, resisting arrest, assault, failing to provide a breath sample and failure to comply with a probation order.

His defence lawyer, Natasha Calvinho, said, “I can confirm that I am counsel for Mr. Fournier. However, as my client was just arrested and the matter is still before the courts it would be inappropriate for me to comment any further at this time.”

Fournier’s next appearance in court is on Monday, but no bail hearing has been scheduled.

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An OPP officer who was to be prosecuted this week in Ottawa on charges that he sexually assaulted his pregnant girlfriend in 2017 was spared trial because it took too long to get to court, with the judge who stayed proceedings calling it a most unfortunate, regrettable and sad result.

And, in a remarkable postscript to his decision, the judge provided a series of suggestions that read like a manual for Ottawa prosecutors, defence lawyers, police and court staff so they can finally “get it right” when it comes to court delays.

Ontario Court Justice Norman Boxall granted the officer — whose name is shielded by a publication ban — a stay because his charter right to a trial within 18 months had been infringed, saying “to conclude otherwise would render meaningless a right enshrined in the charter as the supreme law of the land.”

The judge noted there were unjustified institutional delays for a simple case, from basic court scheduling to the fact that the Ottawa Crown’s office didn’t provide disclosure in a timely way. Even the Crown admitted the provision of disclosure in this case was far from a model of efficiency. The net time from arrest to end of trial dates was just short of 22 months, which exceeds the Supreme Court-mandated ceiling for trial length in the Ontario Court of Justice.

In 2016, ruling in the case of R. v. Jordan, the high court said provincial court cases must be concluded within 18 months of a criminal charge being laid.

In the OPP officer’s case, some Crown disclosure was given to the defence in an inaccessible format due to password problems, and some of it was just blank or illegible.

“There is no real explanation that justifies the delay in providing it,” Boxall said.

The Jordan application was successfully argued by defence lawyers Genevieve McInnes and Tony Paciocco, and while assistant Crown attorneys tried to blame some delays on defence lawyers, the judge noted they were “engaging in retrospective analysis that is not borne out by the facts. The defence conduct in this period (July 14 to Sept. 8, 2017) may not have been perfect” but “the Crown’s actions or inactions at the time are very telling.”

Boxall said that during this period the Crown never bothered to reply to any correspondence from defence lawyers.

The judge attributed the longest, most problematic delay to institutional delay, accounting for an incredible 17 months.

“In a case that began a year after Jordan was decided, we are dealing with 17 months of institutional delay in provincial court,” the judge noted.

Boxall wrote that there was only one reason for such a lengthy institutional delay: “The reason is that the court did not offer trial time for seventeen months.”

The judge said the institutional delay was completely unacceptable and noted the Crown did and said nothing from October 2017 on to address, let alone avoid the institutional delay.

In a postscript to his decision, Boxall said trial judges want to hear trials, not Jordan applications, and said these charter violations are almost always entirely preventable. The judge modestly said others may have more effective strategies to prevent cases like this one, before detailing his series of suggestions:

• Setting a trial date is a critical step so treat it like one. “All parties, the Crown, the defence and the court should take the time it takes to get it right … “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
• There’s a new electronic form of the information (sheet) with three boxes to fill out: arrest date, 15-month flag, 18-month flag. “The reason for this to be on the information is obvious. Yet in Ottawa, it is never completed.”
• The police need to start filling out those boxes. If they did so, the clerk or the court could easily address the presumptive ceiling if for some reason the Crown failed to do so.
• The Crown should check the presumptive ceiling when a trial date is being offered.
• Technology may exist so that when a trial date is entered into the file a warning is generated if it is not within the presumptive ceiling — much like a warning system used by some civil lawyers to respect limitation periods. The Crown should consider such a system.
• If the defence is not waiving (its client’s right to a speedy trial) the Crown needs to ask for the earliest trial date.
• The justice setting the date should not knowingly set a date outside the presumptive ceiling.
• The Crown must inform the justice if there has been a defence delay or a complexity, otherwise the judge won’t know. Boxall cited an appeal court decision that said creative solutions can sometimes be found to accelerate matters, but such solutions will remain elusive unless the court is told about the concern.

“In the overwhelming percentage of cases the local administrative judge is in a position to take steps to ensure the trial proceeds with the required time. However, he or she, needs to be asked to exercise those powers,” Boxall said.

“Inevitably some cases will have (Jordan) concerns or violations. However, (Jordan) violations for the first scheduled trial date are entirely preventable. There is nothing inevitable about them,” the judge concluded.

The OPP officer remains suspended with pay.

gdimmock@postmedia.com

http://www.twitter.com/crimegarden

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An Ottawa landscaper who covered his tracks and hid from police after a deadly hit-and-run has been spared jail time by a judge who accepted his explanation that a fear of turning himself in was heightened because he’s a “man of colour” afraid of racist police.

In 2015, Andy Nevin, 39, was cycling along Leitrim Road when Deinsberg St-Hilaire’s pickup truck smashed into him. St-Hilaire was found not guilty of dangerous driving causing death in 2018, but pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice.

During his trial, court heard that St-Hilaire went to substantive lengths to hide his involvement in Nevin’s death.

A file photo of Deinsberg St-Hilaire arriving at the Ottawa Courthouse in November 2018.

The maximum penalty for obstruction of justice is two years in prison, but Ontario Superior Court Justice Catherine Aitken instead sentenced St-Hilaire to 100 hours of community service. In the conditional sentence, delivered Wednesday, the judge also gave St-Hilaire a curfew of 10 p.m. for one year, unless it’s snowing. (She wanted to accommodate his winter snow plow job.)

The judge noted that St-Hilaire’s fear of racist police was connected to past traffic stops where he said he’d been treated unfairly.

Though the Ottawa police don’t normally comment on rulings, Chief Charles Bordeleau issued a rare statement on Wednesday: “It’s unfortunate that these comments were made putting into question the professionalism of our members during this difficult investigation.”

While the judge said St-Hilaire’s fears didn’t justify his callous actions in covering his tracks, she accepted it was genuine — just like his “deep remorse and shame” for killing Nevin.

But the judge also said St-Hilaire failed to do the right thing after hitting Nevin and showed a blatant lack of respect for Nevin’s grieving family.

“His silence and efforts to conceal (the crime) only added to the hurt” of the family, the judge said.

St-Hilaire never stopped his vehicle after striking Nevin, who was thrown some 60 feet off his bike and into the ditch where he was left to die alone on June 28, 2015. The judge accepted St-Hilaire’s story during trial that he fell asleep at the wheel only to be awoken by a loud bang. He kept on driving when he checked the rear-view mirror and saw nothing amiss.

He was doing 80 kilometres an hour in a 50-kilometre zone. It was 5:55 a.m. and he was returning from a wedding after-party. He testified he’d only had one glass of wine the entire night. It was his brother’s wedding and he was the best man. St-Hilaire got behind the wheel of a F-250 Ford pickup after being awake for 22 hours.

When Justice Aitken delivered her not guilty verdict, she called it a circumstantial case, and said the Crown fell short of proving St-Hilaire’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

And when the judge announced on Wednesday that she would spare St-Hilaire a jail sentence, Kerry Nevin, Andy’s father, walked out of court in disgust. He said his son deserved better.

“There is no justice for Andy. I understand vigilantism these days because the justice system doesn’t work. This whole process has been madness. It’s been insanity from the beginning,” he said.

The days following Nevin’s death were long and horrible for his family. While they were making funeral plans, court heard how St-Hilaire was covering his tracks in a most calculated way.

He tarped the truck that was all over the news, had it repaired and took it to the car wash. He also went into hiding and checked in at a motel out by the airport.

Ottawa police detectives worked the case around the clock and had St-Hilaire under surveillance before arresting him nine days after the hit-and-run.

Those days were hard on the Nevin family, who said they wished St-Hilaire had owned up to what had happened.

At a sentencing hearing earlier this year, they described St-Hilaire as a “heartless monster” and asked how he sleeps at night.

Assistant Crown Attorney Lisa Miles called St-Hilaire’s actions a shameful act. The prosecutor told the judge during the sentencing hearing that St-Hilaire should have taken responsibility and reminded the court that Nevin’s death and the trial has left his family broken. Miles also noted that St-Hilaire’s regret and remorse was plentiful long after the fact. She said everyone has a certain responsibility and that St-Hilaire had failed in his, choosing instead to hide his involvement. “It’s not who we are as a community,” Miles said.

Throughout the trial, court proceedings have been tense — and things were no different Wednesday. As the judge summarized glowing reference letters about the convicted man, saying he was kind-hearted and generous, Nevin’s father, seated in the court gallery, shouted back that he was also a “killer.”

Andy Nevin’s sister-in-law, Lindsay Nevin, left, and co-parent Nadia Robinson react to the sentence given Deinsberg St-Hilaire outside of the Ottawa Courthouse on Wednesday.

The grieving Nevin family said they felt the judge spent too much time painting a sympathetic portrait of the man who killed their son, instead of talking about him. The judge outlined how St-Hilaire went to church, and had endured racism and bullying in the schoolyard growing up because he was a poor black immigrant.

gdimmock@postmedia.com
Twitter: @crimegarden

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Shirley Laws is the textbook definition of being prepared.

Laws, 40, spent Saturday getting ready as the rising Ottawa River started lapping the shore and then the road running alongside this old lumber mill town. She was trying to save her riverside log home from the swelling, rising river.

Her family and friends built a five-foot sandbag wall around the home and had six pumps running in the basement. The water was slowly coming from the side of her home, too, from a culvert leading to the river in the Masson-Angers sector of Gatineau, 30 kilometres northeast of downtown Ottawa.

Shirley Laws shows the preparations they have made to get their Masson-Angers home ready for the rising water of the Ottawa River.

Laws went to get an outboard motor from the backyard shed and came across an old CD she hadn’t played in years, so she put on the Mexican fiesta music so she was “not so discouraged” about the hours and days ahead. She was hooking up the 9.9-horsepower motor to a Lund tinny boat because, if the river reaches peak levels, it will be her only way to get around.

She has been through this before. Her house flooded in the disastrous spring of 2017, mere months after Laws and her husband had renovated the basement. They’ve just finished renovating the basement again and fear they could be back to square one.

But she has hope and she’s certainly prepared. “This year, we’re ready. I’m really hoping this will be OK this year,” Laws said as her sister arrived at the door with seafood pie and a plate of their mom’s Easter ham.

The ferry service running from Masson-Angers to Cumberland, on the Ontario side, was down to three vessels Saturday, short one after its entrance road washed out.

Up the road from the ferry terminal, David Proulx, 33, fortified his two-storey home with help from family and friends. They lined sandbags around the home and moved every stick of furniture upstairs. Proulx’s house was flooded in 2017, too, but his family is staying put for now, to “see how it goes.”

“The water comes in fast, so it’s best to be prepared,” Proulx said.

A familiar street from the 2017 flooding was showing signs of high water already on Rue Saint-Louis.

In Pointe-Gatineau, police closed several side streets Saturday morning as the Moreau Creek swelled and flooded the area, but residents had their eyes fixed on the Gatineau River as they and dozens of volunteers moved quickly to build sandbag walls around homes in the working-class neighbourhood.

Others were moving out furniture — including mattresses — out of homes as fast as possible.

All over, people pitched in with shovels, backhoes and piles of sand.

Josée Latulippe, who owns a property at the intersection of Blais and Saint-Louis streets, wasn’t taking any chances because the 2017 flood had left with seven feet of water in the basement. “We were canoeing here in 2017,” she recalled.

Latulippe, her husband’s friends, families and neighbours spent Saturday building a sandbag wall around the property. Two tenants, Rick Lemieux, 59, and Frédéric Tremblay, 45, worked hard to protect their homes.

Lemieux used to live down the road and lost everything in the 2017 flood. He said he was fortunate this time because he now lived on the second floor of his new apartment. Tremblay, sipping a Pepsi on a break, said he was lucky to live on the third floor. Either way, they were helping out the most vulnerable down in the basement and in other homes in the low-lying neighbourhood.

A familiar street from the 2017 flooding was showing signs of high water already on Rue Saint-Louis.

Gatineau officials held a Saturday morning meeting with the military, which was expected to patrol city streets and monitor all infrastructure, notably bridges and the water-treatment plant.

“We can see the water on the street, but we can’t see underneath, so they’ll be patrolling and monitoring to let us know when it’s an emergency to help us decide what roads to close or not,” said Gatineau Mayor Maxime Pedneaud-Jobin, who greeted hundreds of volunteers at a sandbagging centre at Beaudry Arena in the Limbour neighbourhood.

“The water is rising and it’s going to come fast,” said the mayor, who expected peak levels on Sunday or Monday.

One of the city’s biggest concerns is its water-treatment plant. “We don’t want a crisis within a crisis,” the mayor said.

Further north, MRC des Collines police said they had closed Eardley Road, which connects Masham to Luskville.

One woman was killed at about 3 a.m. Saturday when a vehicle was swept off the road in Pontiac, where the road had been washed out.

Louise Séguin Lortie, 72, plunged into a creek swollen with meltwater and rain. She had been alone in the car and “unable to avoid the fall,” police said.

On Friday, the Outaouais municipalities of Pontiac, Val-des-Monts and Saint-André-Avellin declared states of emergency.

Pontiac Mayor Joanne Labadie addresses the media about the death of Louise Séguin Lortie, 72, who was on rue de Clarendon at chemin Bronson-Bryant when her car went into a large washed out section of the road.

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This year’s spring flood claimed the life of a motorist Saturday as the Ottawa River continued its rise toward an expected peak later this week.

A 72-year-old woman, Louise Séguin Lortie, of Pontiac, was killed early Saturday morning when her car plunged off a road that had been washed away by a flooded creek. Her car slammed into a creek bed just west of Quyon, Que.

Pontiac Mayor Joanne Labadie said she had been shaken by the event and vowed to do everything in her power to ensure the municipality’s roads were safe.

Labardie said the municipality — one of three in the Outaouais to declare states of emergency — expected to have Canadian army personnel arrive late Saturday to help Pontiac officials assess and repair its road infrastructure.

On Friday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had told Quebec Premier François Legault he would send in the army to help flooded communities.

On Saturday morning, City of Gatineau officials held an emergency meeting with the military, which plans to patrol city streets and monitor all infrastructure — notably bridges and Gatineau’s water-treatment plant — as water levels continue to rise in low-lying neighbourhoods.

“We’re working out what their mission will be. We can see the water on the street, but we can’t see underneath, so they’ll be patrolling and monitoring to let us know when it’s an emergency to help us decide what roads to close or not,” said Gatineau Mayor Maxime Pedneaud-Jobin, who greeted hundreds of volunteers at a sandbagging centre at Beaudry Arena in the Limbour neighbourhood.

“The water is rising and it’s going to come fast,” the mayor said.

One of the city’s biggest concerns is its water-treatment plant. “We don’t want a crisis within a crisis,” the mayor said.

The military will not be protecting private property as it’s unable to protect every home from rising water.

The latest projections from the Ottawa River Regulation Committee, issued at 4 p.m. Saturday, said colder than forecast temperatures and less than anticipation precipitation had reduced expected inflows “in many locations.”

The updated projection estimated that water levels would peak in Gatineau — at the Hull Marina — on Monday, with a peak roughly centimetres above its level as of Saturday afternoon.

Related

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• Weather warning still in effect after record-breaking rainfall
• Ontario cuts conservation authority funding for flood programs
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At Ottawa’s Britannia Beach, water levels are not expected to peak until April 29, when the river is projected to be 45 centimetres above Saturday’s level. (The peak level forecasts do not account for the effects of wind and waves and are subject to a high degree of uncertainly, officials warn.)

Areas downstream of Britannia are projected to experience higher water levels because tributaries on the Quebec side — such as the Gatineau and Lievre Rivers — are carrying large amounts of meltwater into the Ottawa River from higher elevations.

It means low-lying areas of Masson, Cumberland, Rigaud and Clarence-Rockland could all experience significant flooding.

Nervous homeowners who were watching the sky Saturday were relieved that little rain fell in the region during the day. Environment Canada cancelled its rainfall warning for Ottawa at 3:11 p.m.

The city had received 35.4 mm of rain in the previous day.

The forecast for the coming week calls for periods of drizzle and showers, but no significant rainfall.

Just as in 2017, there were signs of high water already on Rue Saint-Louis in Gatineau on Saturday.

With local rivers swollen from melting snow, the amount of rainfall and its intensity will be critical factors in determining whether the region experiences another major flood just two years after the disastrous spring of 2017.

Flooding has already forced the closure of several Ottawa streets, including Heron Road from Prince of Wales Drive to Riverside Drive, and Trim Road at Jeanne d’Arc Boulevard. Highway 174 was also closed between Old Montreal Road East and Cameron Road, and it was also to be closed Sunday and Monday between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m., with a detour in place..

In Pointe-Gatineau, where the Gatineau River meets the Ottawa River, police closed several side streets Saturday morning as the Moreau Creek swelled and flooded the area.

Dozens of volunteers were building sandbag walls around homes Saturday, while others could be seen moving out furniture — including mattresses — as fast as possible.

All over the neighbourhood, people pitched in with shovels, backhoes and piles of sand.

“These people are very mobilized,” Pedneaud-Jobin said.

In Cumberland, residents and volunteers rushed to fill sandbags to protect homes in the Leo Lane and Morin Road area east of the village. Coun. Stephen Blais tweeted that floodwaters were several feet higher on Saturday than they had been on Friday.

The Quyon Ferry was still running Saturday morning, but flooding near the Quebec side launch had started.

On Good Friday, 523 volunteers showed up at the Beaudry Arena in Gatineau to fill 20,000 bags of sand. By 10:42 a.m. Saturday, 220 were already on hand.

According to the City of Ottawa, volunteers are still needed at three locations: the Constance and Buckham’s Bay Community Centre, 262 Len Purcell Drive; Highway 174 and Morin Road (this road will be closed for through traffic, but volunteers will be permitted to enter at Old Montreal Road West and Hwy. 174); and the Ron Kolbus Centre, 102 Greenview Dr. (parking is available at the upper parking lot).

Ottawa has a number of locations where residents can obtain sandbags, including:

Centre:

• 29 Hurdman Rd.
• 1683 Woodward Dr.
• Jamieson Street at the Ottawa River
• Rowatt Street at the Ottawa River
• Belltown Dome (2915 Haughton Ave.)
• 2888 Grandeur Ave.

East
• 2264 Colonial Rd. (Navan)
• 911 Industrial Ave.
West
• 2941 March Rd.
• 4127 John Shaw Rd.
• 2121 Huntley Rd.
• 1655 Maple Grove Rd.
• 262 Len Purcell Dr.
• Beach at Moorhead Dr.
• Greenland Road at Armitage Avenue
• Kingdom Mines Road and Logger’s Way
• Grandview in the Park (Barry Mullen Park)

South

• 2145 Roger Stevens Dr.
• 4244 Rideau Valley Dr.
•1159 Moodie Dr. on Dibblee Road, across from 101 Dibblee Rd.

With files from Joanne Laucius

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Flowers left at the scene near Quyon.

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