A Windsor man faces a possible jail term — of one day short of two years — for possessing and distributing child pornography, following a sentencing hearing in provincial court Thursday.

Ontario Court Justice Sharman Bondy reserved passing sentence on 34-year-old Frank Morency after listening to a joint submission from the Crown and Morency’s lawyer that called for a term of two years less one day on one count of distributing child pornography and a further sentence of one year for simple possession of child pornography. The two sentences were to be served concurrently, along with a further breach of recognizance conviction.

Any sentence of two years or longer is served in a federal penitentiary. In a statement prior to sentencing, Morency, who was charged following a police investigation last March, asked for his time to be served at the Ontario Corrections Institute in Brampton because  he would be able to receive the treatment and counseling there for his sexual and substance abuse problems. He might not receive that help if he’s sent to a federal penitentiary, he said.

“I’m very regretful to even be here,” he told the judge. “I appreciate and respect you for hearing the case…. I want to go to where whatever treatment is accessible to me to help myself get better and address my problems with sex and drugs.”

Morency pleaded guilty to the possession of 67 images of various children in a variety of sexual situations and of uploading for distribution 51 images of a single child contained in a separate file. He was further charged with breach of conditions stemming from an earlier sexual offence, for being in a park or play area with children. Morency has a previous conviction for sexual interference and invitation to sexual touching.

The maximum sentence for possession and distribution of child pornography is 10 years.

In their joint submission, the Crown and defense asserted that it was in the best interests of society for Morency to get treatment while serving his time and that he  be placed on probation for three years, under strict monitoring conditions, once his time is served, and that he further be entered in the National Sex Crimes Registry for life.   Morency has been in custody since August, however Crown Prosecutor Eric Costaris said that should not have an impact on the two-years-less-a-day recommendation.

Defence lawyer Elizabeth Craig acknowledged that her client did not have “a favourable” pre-sentence report. But she noted he had a troubled background that included his own sexual abuse between the ages of seven and 12 at the hands of a neighbour and that there is a family history of substance abuse.

Bondy said she will take time to consider the submission and return with her sentence Mar. 14.

Five and a half years after being convicted of sexually assaulting two students, Mark Christopher Baggio was back in court Thursday, this time pleading poverty.

Baggio, a former Catholic high school teacher, represented himself in Superior Court in a civil lawsuit filed by one of his victims. The 25-year-old woman is asking the judge in the case to assess a monetary penalty of nearly $1.1 million against Baggio without her case ever going to trial.

“There is no genuine issue requiring a trial,” argued Richard Pollock, the woman’s lawyer. In short, Pollock said, Baggio is liable for damages because he committed the crime for which the woman seeks reparation.

Baggio, who was a guidance counsellor, religion teacher and coach at F.J. Brennan high school, was convicted in 2008 of sexual assault, sexual exploitation and luring a child for the intimate relationship he had with the woman beginning in 2002 when she was 14 years old and in Grade 9.

Baggio was convicted of the same crimes related to a second student. That victim is also suing, with her civil suit set to go to trial in May.

Baggio appealed his convictions but lost. He was sentenced to four years in a federal penitentiary, but did not begin serving the sentence until 2011 after his appeal was dismissed. He was released on parole in September after serving two-thirds of his sentence.

A publication ban protects the identity of the victim whose lawsuit was addressed in court Thursday. In court documents and in proceedings, she is referred to as Jane Doe.

In a written affidavit filed with the court, Baggio continues to deny he abused Jane Doe in any way. Baggio insists he never had anything but a professional, teacher-student relationship with her.

But in court Thursday, Baggio backed off that position. He said he can’t deny he has been found guilty so accepts he is “liable” in the action. But, he said he intends to contest the “quantum of damages” Jane Doe seeks.

Jane Doe is seeking $800,000 in damages, including damages for mental suffering and loss of future income. Her parents are seeking $50,000 each and her siblings – a brother and sister – are seeking $25,000 in damages.

Jane Doe is also seeking pre-judgment interest of $143,000.

Superior Court Justice Thomas Carey warned Baggio Thursday that he may additionally be ordered to pay Jane Doe’s lawyer’s fees.

Jane Doe and her family originally launched a $6.8-million lawsuit against Baggio, the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board and certain employees, including former principals and teachers she alleged knew or ought to have known about the abuse.

The board settled its lawsuit with Jane Doe for an undisclosed amount. The board had filed a cross-claim against Baggio, but court heard Thursday that claim has also been dismissed.

Baggio is the sole remaining defendant in the case.

Pollock told the court his client remains psychologically damaged from Baggio’s abuse. She twice dropped out of college, unable to complete her post-secondary education.

As part of her claim she is seeking $500,000 in damages for loss of future income.

Baggio argued the woman did not mitigate damages by seeking counselling.

Baggio has consulted a lawyer who helped him prepare documents to present in court. But, saying he is “not able any longer to afford counsel,” he represented himself.

“I’m on my own,” he said. “The last thing I wanted to do is be self-represented, but that’s where I am.”

While Baggio was released from prison on the National Parole Board’s understanding that he had a job waiting for him, he was overheard lamenting during a break in court Thursday that having a criminal record has kept him from finding employment in Peel Region where he lives.

He told the judge he could not even afford to order court transcripts.

The judge said he may have to hold another hearing on the case to assess damages, but will decide in the meantime on Baggio’s liability.

ssacheli@windsorstar.com

Conditions at the Windsor Jail are so awful, an inmate deserves enhanced credit for the time he spent there, a Superior Court judge has ruled.

Justice Thomas Carey Friday gave a Toronto man 500 days’ credit for the 402 days he has spent at the Windsor Jail awaiting trial and sentencing. Apart from the fact that the man was involved in four fights while behind bars – in all but one he was the aggressor – there was nothing remarkable about his stay, court heard.

Defence lawyer Maria Carroccia had argued for enhanced credit of 1.5 days for every day behind bars for Richmond Bediako, 21. Inmates are routinely subjected to lockdowns where they are confined to their cells and not allowed to congregate in common areas. It happens if inmates defy jail rules or if there are staffing shortages.

During lockdowns, inmates also can’t receive visitors.

Carroccia further argued that Bediako was denied the opportunity to earn what’s referred to as remission – automatic time off for good behaviour – because he was awaiting trial and not serving a sentence.

Judges used to routinely hand out two-for-one credit until the federal government in 2009 instated what it called “truth in sentencing” legislation. Since then, lawyers have again begun arguing for enhanced credit based on jail conditions and long terms of pre-sentence custody.

Acting on a tip, Windsor police officers arrested Bediako at gunpoint Jan. 29, 2013 while he was riding in a cab near Peter Street and Rosedale Avenue in the city’s west end.  Bediako was wearing a bullet-proof vest and carrying a loaded .40-calibre Smith & Wesson semi-automatic handgun in the waistband of his pants.

Bediako was on a court-ordered weapons prohibition at the time stemming from a 2011 conviction for theft and assault in Toronto.

The handgun Bediako was carrying had been reported stolen in 2009 in Orlando, Fla.

After five days of trial last year, Bediako was convicted of possession of a prohibited weapon, possession of a weapon he knew was stolen and possession of a weapon contrary to a prohibition order.

Carey sentenced Bediako to four years in a federal penitentiary. With time served, his sentence is reduced to two years and seven months.

While his last weapons prohibition was for five years, it is now extended to life. He must also provide a blood sample for the national DNA databank used by police to solve crime.

“Because of the seriousness of gun crime and the proliferation of the use of guns in our society, deterrence and denunciation must be primary in the sentence I pass,” Carey said. “Society must know these crimes are taken very serious and will be punished.”

The sentence was a compromise between what  Carroccia and assistant Crown attorney Ilana Mizel requested the judge to impose. Mizel asked for a four-year sentence with no enhanced credit for time served. Carroccia asked for a two-year sentence with enhanced credit of 1.5 days for every day Bediako has already spent in custody.

Bediako had no family in court. Carey said Bediako’s parents, who emigrated from Ghana in the 1980s, are “fed up” with their son’s criminal activities. Court heard Bediako’s older brother was deported to Ghana after committing crimes in this country. Bediako is a Canadian citizen.

He is eight credits short of his high school diploma. He told a probation officer he wants to study journalism.

The Windsor Jail, opened in 1926, is slated to close this year. It is being replaced by the new Southwest Detention Centre nearing completion on 8th Concession Road.

ssacheli@windsorstar.com

After foreign authorities foiled their attempt to flee Canada, two young Lev Tahor members are on a hunger strike to protest their removal from the ultra-orthodox Jewish sect accused of abusing them.

The 14- and 16-year-old girls are now back in Ontario after they were detained trying to get to Guatemala to dodge a court ruling that ordered them into foster car.

“The 16-year-old has been put into Sick Kids hospital where we’re expecting them to be force-feeding her,” said Pamela Palmer, Lev Tahor’s newly appointed media co-ordinator.

“These people have not had one of their rights respected in this entire process. Criminals get better services than what they got.”

She said six more children, who child protection authorities want to apprehend and put into foster care, were able to flee to Guatemala and will remain there unless the custody battle ends in their favour.

Palmer added that Lev Tahor leaders set out for Toronto early Monday to meet with one of Canada’s highest-profile constitutional lawyers. She said the group was likely to retain Clayton Ruby. But Ruby wouldn’t confirm Monday afternoon that he’d met with any Lev Tahor members.

• Lev Tahor follower with infant apprehended at Calgary airport
• Removal of 127 Lev Tahor children sought
• Lev Tahor children ordered back to Quebec

Chatham-Kent Children’s Services didn’t return phone calls Monday to comment on the controversial case. Neither did the media relations department at Sick Kids hospital.

The 200-member group hightailed it from Quebec in the middle of the night last November just before a judge ordered 13 children be placed into foster car over allegations of forced marriage, neglect, child abuse and squalid living conditions.

The group moved to Chatham, where a judge upheld the Quebec ruling last month. The families involved were granted permission to appeal the decision. That was supposed to happen Wednesday, but the 13 children disappeared.

The same morning they were supposed to be in court, nine members of the community including six children were detained at the airport in Trinidad and Tobago. They were trying to buy airline tickets to Guatemala.

Those families were returned to Canada over the weekend. After arriving at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport on Saturday, the six children were placed into the care of the Children’s Aid Society. The Canada Border Services Agency was processing the three adults, according to Peel police.

On Sunday afternoon, a 17-year-old girl and her five-month-old baby were also apprehended at Calgary International Airport.

Lev Tahor member Miriam Helbrans said two of the people shipped back from Trinidad — girls aged 14 and 16 — started a hunger strike upon their return to Canada.

“They want to come home,” said Helbrans, daughter of Lev Tahor leader Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans. “They are suffering for nothing. They have no reason to take away our kids. They have no signs of abuse. We are not abusing children, we are not harming kids. This is exactly not our way, to harm kids. And our kids are suffering now from hunger strike. They are crying and yelling.”

Police and child protection services have said they don’t know where the other six children from the original apprehension order have gone. Palmer said Monday they are in Guatemala.

She said they wanted to go to southern or central America because countries there “are not under Crown rule,” and the families believe they’ll be free to teach their children according to their religious beliefs.

“They’re going to see how everything goes with the Canadian courts,” Palmer said. “If things are finally getting handled properly and things are being done right, then they’ll probably come back.”

After the families headed for Guatemala, child protection services said they were going to ask for the removal of all 127 Lev Tahor children out of fear the group was planning another mass exodus.

The community appears to be gearing up to fight that, something signified by their interest in retaining Ruby, high-priced constitutional and civil rights lawyer.

“The entire thing that has been going on, it’s way past the point of it just being a family court issue,” Palmer said.

Group members have repeatedly denied the abuse allegations, claiming they’ve been made targets and their rights have been violated because of their religious beliefs.

They have started comparing their treatment from Canadian courts and children’s services agencies to Nazi Germany’s treatment of Jews during the Holocaust. Some members have taken to wearing yellow Star of David badges similar to the ones that Jews were forced to wear under the Nazi regime.

“If they continue to go with us like this, we will all wear yellow patches like Second World War,” Helbrans said. “We feel that we are in the ghettos. Nothing is getting changed, nothing is getting better. They are behaving with us worse every day.”

A New Jersey man involved in a head-on crash that took the life of a Windsor woman may soon face trial on a charge of vehicular manslaughter.

Michael Dalessio, 31, appeared in court this month in Warren County, New Jersey, according to The Express-Times.

He’s awaiting a grand jury decision on whether there’s evidence to indict him on one count of vehicular manslaughter and six counts of assault by automobile.

Deepa Panchal, 53, of Windsor, was killed in the collision on Dec. 27 in Allamuchy Township, New Jersey.

A post-mortem examination determined that she suffered a fatal head injury.

Also hurt in the crash were six of Panchal’s family members and relatives. Injuries included a broken collarbone, broken ribs, fractured pelvis and spine, a punctured lung, lacerated organs, a chest contusion and a fractured toe.

The Panchals were in a southbound Toyota Sienna minivan. Dalessio was northbound in a 2001 black Acura.

According to police, Dalessio attempted to make a left-hand turn without yielding right of way.

The resulting collision sent both vehicles spinning.

Dalessio suffered a fractured leg, an injured wrist, and head trauma.

The Express-Times reports that Dalessio had a blood alcohol reading of 0.18 at the time of the crash — more than twice the legal limit.

Bail for Dalessio was set at $125,000. He was originally sent to Warren County jail, but the Express-Times reports he is no longer being held there.

Deepa Panchal had been visiting relatives in Mansfield Township, New Jersey.  She was a member of Windsor’s Hindu temple and cultural centre.

–with files from The Express-Times

The hearing for a Windsor police officer accused of deceit and discreditable conduct won’t resume until July — almost four years since she was suspended with pay.

Const. Dorothy Nesbeth is facing charges under the Police Act for allegedly trying to return to Windsor from across the border with undeclared alcohol.

The disciplinary process has unfolded irregularly. The most recent hearing dates were in December. The case isn’t scheduled to be discussed again until July 2.

Const. Dorothy Nesbeth in July 2012.

Nesbeth was suspended with pay shortly after the incident — which took place July 28, 2010.

Canada Border Services Agency members stopped Nesbeth’s vehicle at the Ambassador Bridge.

Nesbeth was driving. Also in the vehicle were her daughter and mother.

According to the CBSA, a search of the vehicle’s trunk revealed 102 cans of beer, two five-litre boxes of wine, and two bottles of rum — all undeclared.

Nesbeth allegedly grew belligerent, and spoke to CBSA members in an angry and threatening manner.

The Police Act hearing formally began in August 2011. Since then, there have been several long adjournments and interruptions.

Nesbeth’s lawyer Patrick Ducharme has at times halted the proceedings with motions to ban the public from the hearing.

The case was further complicated in 2012 when evidence was lost and Ducharme complained of biased prosecution.

As a Windsor police constable, Nesbeth’s current annual salary is $94,527.

In December, the cumulative amount paid to Nesbeth since she’d been suspended was about $288,000.

Nesbeth has also launched civil suits against Windsor police and the CBSA. She is seeking $350,000 compensation in each suit.

The University of Windsor is embroiled in a $40-million lawsuit after a heralded partnership into solar energy research went sour.

SunSource Grids Inc. says it had an agreement with the university to develop a technology called solar switching. With the technology, power to a building could be switched back and forth between solar cells and the local utility grid.

“The solar switch, if developed and marketed, was a potentially lucrative technology,” says SunSource in its statement of claim filed in Superior Court.

The company claims it partnered with the university to build a prototype and help bring the technology to market, but that the school instead “took a series of bad faith steps intended to frustrate” getting a patent. Potential investors lost interest. General Electric, referred to in the statement of claim as a “potential purchaser,” also lost interest when SunSource was unable to demonstrate the technology.

The company’s claims have yet to be proven in court.

The project got $25,000 in funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada. It got headlines in 2012, with an associate professor of electrical engineering in Windsor heading the project touting its benefits.

The university is fighting the lawsuit, filing a statement of defence that claims the company breached the terms of the research agreement and failed to make good on its promise of $53,800 in in-kind contributions toward the project.

The university has filed a countersuit, claiming $100,000 in damages from SunSource and its owner, Marlon Hurst.

Hurst used the business name Marcom Systems in his initial dealings, the university says.

The university says, in addition to the NSERC grant, it secured $50,000 from the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario. A condition of the award was that SunSource was to invest in the project, too.

The university claims it entered into an agreement which stated that all intellectual property would be jointly owned with SunSource. If SunSource wanted full ownership, it could buy it for $300,000 plus a royalty of five per cent on sales for a period of five years.

The university says it worked on the project, developing algorithms it provided SunSource, but did not build a prototype because the company failed to fulfil its contractual obligation. The university claims it was forced to “find alternate funding sources” to fulfil SunSource’s obligation, otherwise it would have been out $21,800.

The sources of that funding is not included in the statement of claim.

No court dates have been set in the lawsuit. “We’re still in the pleading stage,” said Tom Serafimovski, the Windsor lawyer representing the university.

Attempts to reach Hurst through his lawyer Monday were unsuccessful. Mark Wiffen, a Toronto lawyer representing him, said he and the university are still exchanging documents, and will conduct interviews in June and enter into mandatory mediation in late summer.

ssacheli@windsorstar.com and Twitter @WinStarSacheli

The scam went undetected for nearly three years.

Month after month, building manager Maria Pato would fill out the paperwork to claim subsidies for 11 apartments rented to people on social assistance.

The problem was the tenants had moved out long ago.

Pato, 55, who also goes by the name Isabel, pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count of fraud for falsely claiming a total of nearly $130,000 in rent subsidies.

She was handed a suspended sentence and placed on probation for 18 months. Pato is also prohibited for five years from holding a job or volunteer position that puts her in charge of anyone else’s money or property.

Defence lawyer Patrick Ducharme told Ontario court Justice Gregory Campbell that Pato deserved leniency because she never profited from the scheme. Ducharme claimed Pato’s boss, Ken Khoury, threatened the woman to fill out the fraudulent paperwork and kept the money for himself.

“He said, you sign the documents or you lose your job,” Ducharme told the judge. “She was desperate for the job. She was supporting her husband and a daughter… She would have never been involved in this had it not been for her circumstances.”

Khoury was never charged by police. Court heard that he paid back all the money fraudulently collected — $129,693.

The Windsor-Essex Community Housing Corporation has begun cutting ties to Khoury, said spokeswoman Kari Schofield. The social housing corporation used to have 60 rent-geared-to-income units in four buildings owned by Khoury in the city.

“We have cut that in half,” Schofield said.

As people in the assistance program move out of the units, the corporation doesn’t put new tenants in.

“We’re doing it through attrition,” Schofield said.

Moving everyone out of the units would cause too much disruption to the program participants, many of whom are long-term tenants, elderly or have special needs.

Attempts to contact Khoury were unsuccessful.

The phone number listed for one of his buildings was out of service. A man at another number listed in a for-rent ad placed online said he didn’t know how to contact the owner.

The housing corporation is now checking on its clients housed in Khoury’s buildings and others.

“We have a new internal system,” Schofield said.

Tenants are sent random correspondence – surveys and letters that need to be returned – to verify occupancy.

Court heard that in one case, Pato continued to claim a subsidy for a tenant who had moved out 35 months earlier. That subsidy was $535 a month for a total of $18,7525 in fraudulent payments for one unit alone.

Most monthly subsidies were $535. Others ranged from $176 a month to $565 a month. Sometimes, the subsidies continued for only three months. In other cases, the subsidies continued for three years.

Court heard Pato knew the tenants had moved out because she had cleaned the vacant units and showed them to other prospective tenants.

The housing corporation noticed irregularities last year and called police. Fraud investigators visited a Ouellette Avenue building Pato managed and questioned her about the whereabouts of subsidized tenants. Police arrested Pato April 22, 2013 and charged her with 22 fraud-related counts.

Her guilty plea on one of the counts was the result of a plea negotiation.

Pato, a heavy-set woman with dyed blond hair, was trembling in court. “You look shaken up by this as rightly you should be,” the judge said to her.

Her lawyer told the judge Pato was fired from her job. Her husband has opened a restaurant, but it is not doing well, so she has no means to pay a fine contemplated by the Criminal Code. The judge waived the fine.

Pato is a first-time offender whose suspended sentence gives her the opportunity to avoid a criminal record is she commits no more offences and follows her probation officer’s directions.

ssacheli@windsorstar.com

A convicted pedophile was sentenced Wednesday to two years less a day in jail for possession and distribution of child pornography.

Frank Morency, 34, was also given a sentence of time served – 232 days – for breach of a court order to stay away from facilities geared to children handed down when he was previously convicted of sexual offences against a child.

Morency pleaded guilty in January to possession of 67 images of child pornography involving various victims and to distribution of child pornography for uploading 51 images of a single child.

When police arrested him in March 2013, seizing the computer with the pornographic images on it, they also found a camera which contained photos taken at a waterpark in Niagara Falls he had visited with his wife.

The photos proved he had breached an earlier court order to stay away from places like schools, playgrounds and swimming pools where children are normally found.

Ontario court Justice Sharman Bondy was to sentence Morency on seven previous dates. Despite ultimately giving effect to the sentence agreed to by the Crown and defence in a plea bargain, Bondy heard hours of evidence and submissions.

On one day, a police officer was made to give a detailed description of each image found on Morency’s computer. A booklet containing the images was entered as evidence at the sentencing hearing and sealed.

Morency is banned from life from attending places where children are found and cannot be around his wife’s grandchildren without another adult present.

For the rest of his life, he must periodically register with police as part of the national sex offender registry. He must also provide a sample of his blood for the national DNA databank police use to solve crimes.

Defence lawyer Elizabeth Craig said Morency’s sentence is “spot-on” compared to sentences handed down in similar cases. She said the major mitigating factor in Morency’s case was that he pleaded guilty, considered by the courts as expression of remorse.

ssacheli@windsorstar.com

A local photographer has begun serving a 10-month jail sentence for luring a child.

Andrew Derrek LeHoux, 33, pleaded guilty to one count involving a teenage girl under the age of 16. LeHoux, who goes by the name Dru, was arrested in January after a two-month investigation. The investigation began after his victim’s parents complained to police.

The girl and LeHoux never met face to face, but police used the incident to warn parents about the need to monitor their children’s online activity.

After LeHoux is released from jail, he will be on probation for three years. For the next 20 years, he will have to regularly register his address and vehicle information with police as part of the national sex offender registry and he must provide a blood sample for the national DNA databank used by police to solve crime.

LeHoux was also required to pay a $200 fine which goes into a fund to compensate and support victims of crime.

ssacheli@windsorstar.com or on Twitter @WinStarSacheli

A Chrysler employee accused of dealing drugs from the plant parking lot had the charges against him dropped Thursday.

Todd Jason Windibank and his wife, Amy Lynn, were implicated in one of the largest cocaine busts in Windsor history. They had drugs, a handgun, ammunition, cellphones and a debt list at their Amherstburg home when police raided it in June 2010.  But Superior Court Justice Joseph Quinn ruled Thursday that the grounds for the search were unconstitutional and that the couple’s rights were violated. All the evidence of drug trafficking the police collected from the home was thrown out of court.

“In my judgment there were no objective grounds … which would justify a warrant being issued,” Quinn said. “If these facts constituted objective grounds, then any time a drug trafficker was arrested on the street, a warrant could be issued without further grounds on his or her residence.”

Court heard that a confidential informant told police that Todd Windibank was a trafficker who sold drugs from his black Hummer in the parking lot of the minivan plant where he worked.

Police testified they began tailing Windibank, watching him enter a Wyandotte Street East apartment he had rented but did not seem to inhabit. Police got a warrant to enter the apartment where they found cocaine, marijuana, a hydraulic press covered in cocaine residue, two large electronic scales, a Taurus 38 handgun, a Luger 9mm handgun and a loaded magazine.

Ten days later, police arrested Windibank and his wife, obtaining a search warrant to raid their Amherstburg home.

“In cases where drug traffickers keep a stash house, it is not uncommon to keep currency both at the stash house and at the residence in order to keep currency close at hand,” police said to get the court’s permission to search the Windibank home.

But Quinn ruled that, since the original tipster didn’t give information about drug activity at the Windibank home nor did police notice any such activity while the home was under surveillance, there were no grounds for a search there.

At the Windibank home, police found more than 55 grams of cocaine, 12 bundles of Canadian cash totaling $11,460, a $720 wad of U.S. cash and a Smith & Wesson 9mm handgun with ammunition.

The Windibanks were charged along with Kirk Douglas McNorton and McNorton’s wife, Mary J. Vermeer. Charges against Vermeer were dropped. McNorton is currently serving a seven-year prison term – two years for an aggravated assault and five years for charges related to nearly five kilograms of cocaine, other drugs, trafficking paraphernalia and three handguns found at two addresses, including the Wyandotte Street East apartment.

McNorton was also implicated in a witness tampering case for which Terrence Orval Spina is currently serving a six-month jail sentence. Superior Court heard last month that McNorton sent Spina to intimidate a witness to recant his statement in the aggravated assault case.

ssacheli@windsorstar.com  or Twitter @WinStarSacheli

The jury in the home invasion trial of a young Windsor man and his aunt has been presented with two wildly divergent versions of a violent duel involving a baseball bat and two-by-four in the hallway of a downtown apartment building in June of 2012.

After the Crown wrapped up its case against Alexander Garrett, 22, and his 37-year-old aunt Christiane Bober, asserting that the two had gone to an apartment building at Gilles Boulevard and Ouellette Avenue to confront Garrett’s neighbours about property he claimed had been stolen from him, defence counsel attempted to turn the tables on the prosecution.

Calling their own clients to the witness stand in the Superior Court trial Monday, defence lawyers painted a picture of the two accused merely attempting to collect Garrett’s possessions from the apartment when Bober was beset by a two-by-four wielding man and clubbed to the ground before her nephew could come to her rescue armed with a baseball bat.

The confrontation ended with two victims being taken to hospital.

Garrett has been charged with break and enter and assault with a weapon causing bodily harm. Bober has been charged with assault with a weapon.

Under questioning from defence lawyer Sharron Pollock, Bober said she, along with her nephew and two friends, had gone to1250 Ouellette at 10:30 p.m. June 12,  to accompany Garrett as he tried to pick up belongings following his breakup with the woman he had been sharing an apartment with there. She testified that her nephew told her that he had seen some of his property at the apartment of a neighbour, two doors down from his residence.

When he found the door was locked to his apartment, Garrett left the building again to see if he could gain access from the rear, using a fire escape. Bober said she decided to knock on the neighbour’s door to request that they return the property “like adults.” Instead, she said the two occupants came out yelling and swearing at her. One was a man,  swinging a length of wood. She threw a beer bottle at him.

She testified she was clubbed to the ground and knocked unconscious. When she came to, her nephew was in the hallway with a baseball bat. The two men began jousting and the neighbour, Joseph Yager was knocked down. Then Yager’s partner, Brandi Taylor, attacked Garrett with a knife. He hit her on the side of the head with the bat and she was also subdued.

She said Garrett “saved my life” and carried her back to his apartment, where he put a towel to her wounds before leading her out of the building and back to her home on Malden Road in LaSalle.

“It was my stupidity to think another adult would have the understanding to open the door and say the kid can have his stuff back,” she said. “Who would think he would open the door and hit me on the head with a two-by-four?”

She acknowledged she was told Yager was a violent man, convicted of manslaughter for the 1995 death of  78-year-old Windsor man Enoch (Earl) Evans, but that she did not believe it.

But Crown prosecutor Russ Cornett called her version “incredible” and “nonsense.”

He said previous testimony showed Bober and Garrett had been drinking and fully intended to confront Yager. He suggested she used the beer bottle as a weapon and that she and Garrett tried to force their way into the apartment. Bober denied it. So Cornett asked why, if she were the victim, Bober did not contact police, did not go to hospital for the treatment of her wounds and felt it necessary to bring the baseball bat back to her home on Malden Road and dispose of it in the recycling bin, where it was found by investigators.

She replied she was capable of dressing her own wounds, did not have confidence in the Windsor police and didn’t know what had happened to the bat once it was brought home.

Yager and Taylor were treated and released from hospital. He had bruising to the head and a dislocated hand. Taylor also sustained a head injury.

Garrett then took the stand in his own defence. He testified  he came out of the apartment he had been sharing with his estranged partner, which he had broken into by smashing a window, to see his aunt being struck by Yager.

“I looked and I saw (Yager) hit my aunt with a two-by-four,” he told defence lawyer John Liddle. “I grabbed a baseball bat out of the apartment and ran down the hallway as fast as I could … I thought he would kill her.”

He said was only planning to disarm Yager, when he struck him, not hurt him.

Garrett will be cross-examined when the trial continues today.

dlajoie@windsorstar.com

A Windsor judge will rule Wednesday in a case of alleged animal cruelty involving a dog strangled to death while chained outdoors.

John Mackenzie, 56, is charged with killing a dog and causing an animal unnecessary pain and suffering in the April 2012 death of a 40-kg German Shepherd.

His trial in Ontario court Tuesday heard that Mackenzie was caring for the dog while his friend was in jail. For two days, Mackenzie left the dog chained to a tree in front of the Belle River home he shared with his mother. The dog bit Mackenzie and barked incessantly, so Mackenzie wrapped electrical tape around the dog’s muzzle.

Two hours after taping the dog’s mouth shut, Mackenzie went outside to find the animal dead, the trial heard.

Veterinarian Elizabeth Cozens testified she examined the animal’s body and saw evidence of trauma to its head and neck. There was bleeding from its nose. Shaving off the fur revealed bruising and abrasions.

A bruise encircling the dog’s neck, including indentations consistent with the links in a choke chain, led Cozens to conclude the animal died of strangulation.

Windsor-Essex County Humane Society OSPCA officer Amy Nardella, March 2012. (Windsor Star files)

The dog also had broken capillaries in its eyes and ears likely caused by increased blood pressure brought on by stress. A dog having its muzzle taped shut could suffer such “pinpoint bleeds,” Cozens testified.

An internal examination showed the dog was otherwise healthy.

Mackenzie did not testify in his own defence. But he did co-operate with humane society workers before being charged.

“He said, ‘I’ll tell you anything you want to know,’” investigator Amy Nardella testified. “It was kind of a joke to him.”

Nardella said Lakeshore police called her to Mackenzie’s home. Police were alerted by a social worker visiting Mackenzie’s mother. The social worker told police she saw the dog dead in the yard with electrical tape around its muzzle.

Nardella said when she arrived, the tape was gone and the dog was behind the house. Mackenzie asked Nardella to take the dead animal away.

Mackenzie told her he was bitten by the dog the previous day. Nardella testified she saw Mackenzie’s bandaged hand.

The dog had been tied out on short leash with a choke collar that tightens around an animal’s neck with any pulling action.

“No one saw the animal die,” assistant Crown attorney Scott Pratt told the court. But the only reasonable inference the judge could draw was that as the dog struggled to get the tape off its muzzle, “he choked himself out,” Pratt said.

Pratt said Mackenzie was “certainly reckless in his conduct and that recklessness led to the death of the dog.”

Defence lawyer Frank Miller pointed to a “dearth of evidence” in the case. He said there was no proof that Mackenzie knew or ought to have known that taping a dog’s muzzle shut would cause the animal distress. There was no evidence as to how tightly the dog’s muzzle was bound and that the dog could have been unbothered by the tape, Miller said.

He said Mackenzie was acting with a “lawful purpose” in muzzling the dog with tape “to prevent getting chewed up by this animal.”

Ontario court Justice Gregory Campbell reserved judgment overnight.

ssacheli@windsorstarcom

A man convicted of firearm offences, despite claiming Windsor police planted the guns on him, has applied to the courts to reopen his case.

Gurfathe Singh Kooner, 28, wants more information about the confidential informant who tipped off police about a bag full of guns and ammunition officers say Kooner had in his possession. The bag was seen being thrown from the truck he was driving when police attempted to stop him on Nov. 5, 2009.

Kooner was convicted in November. Since then he has hired new counsel – Toronto lawyers Edward Greenspan and Michael Lacey – to represent him at his sentencing and potentially on appeal.

In documents filed with the court, the new lawyers say Kooner’s former lawyer, Patrick Ducharme, let the Crown off easy at trial when it came to information related to the tipster.

“The circumstances under which the ‘tip’ was provided to the police and the identity of the ‘tipster’ are crucial pieces of information,” the new lawyers say.

Kooner insists cousins Harpinder and Opinder Sian set him up by leaving a bag of weapons at his home, then tricking him into bringing it to them. Kooner testified at trial that he assumed the bag contained colostomy supplies for Opinder, whom he said had been shot in connection to drug dealing in British Columbia.

If the police tip emanated from the Sians, then Kooner’s suspicion about being set up by them is “corroborated to the point that it could not have been simply rejected by the court,” his lawyers say.

Kooner’s application is set to be argued over two days in May. He remains free on bail.

ssacheli@windsorstar.com or on Twitter @WinStarSacheli

A Belle River man who wrapped electrical tape around a dog’s muzzle before it died of asphyxiation was convicted Wednesday of animal cruelty.

John Mackenzie, 56, was found guilty of killing a dog and causing unnecessary pain and suffering to an animal for the April 2012 death of a 40-kilogram German shepherd. Mackenzie had been looking after the dog while its owner was in jail.

Mackenzie put a choke collar on the dog and used a short leash to tether it to a tree in the front yard of the County Road 22 home he shared with his mother.

The dog was barking incessantly and bit him, so he wrapped electrical tape around the dog’s muzzle.

Two hours later, the dog was dead.

Mackenzie’s trial heard the dog died of strangulation. A necropsy showed a bruise encircling the dog’s neck and indentations in its flesh were consistent with the links in a choke collar. The dog also had ruptured capillaries in its eyes and ears.

In convicting Mackenzie Wednesday, Ontario court Justice Gregory Campbell said, while there was no evidence presented at trial that Mackenzie knew the dog would struggle to the point of death, he “should have been able to foresee that consequence.”

Even a child knows a dog needs to pant, the judge said.

“Anyone would resist and struggle if restrained in such a way,” Campbell said. “I can’t help but think there has to be a degree of common sense.”

A sentencing hearing for Mackenzie is set for May.

Under the Criminal Code, the maximum sentence for animal cruelty as a summary conviction offence is 18 months in jail and a $10,000 fine.

ssacheli@windsorstar.com or on Twitter @WinStarSacheli

Stuart Dennis McKay downloads videos involving the rape of little girls as young as one.

For his vast collection of child pornography -– 248 videos and 19,610 still images stored on two laptop computers –- McKay will be going to jail. But a judge Wednesday reserved her decision on how long McKay should be kept behind bars.

McKay, 45, pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography.

In May 2012, police raided the Church Street rooming house where McKay lived after receiving a tip from his landlord. Police then went to the Brighton Beach power plant where McKay worked as a millwright and arrested him.

“I am embarrassed and ashamed,” McKay said, addressing the court Wednesday. He told the judge he needs help.

Defence lawyer Dennis Lenzin said McKay admits to being sexually attracted to children, but insists he has never acted on those desires.

“There’s not much good I can say about this,” Lenzin said. “These images are reviled by society.”

But, Lenzin added, “He is remorseful and he is repulsed by himself.”

Until his arrest, McKay was steadily employed. He was jailed for seven weeks before being freed on bail. While in jail, he was held in protective custody, allowed out of his cell for only two hours a day.

Lenzin asked the judge to give McKay enhanced credit for the time he has already spent behind bars.

Assistant Crown attorney Shelley McGuire asked McKay be sentenced to six to 12 months in jail in addition to the time he has spent behind bars.
Citing other cases where people convicted of possessing child pornography got longer sentences, she said, “It’s a very fair position we are taking given the number of images and videos and the age of the victims.”

Lenzin said McKay has been battling depression as well as alcoholism. Despite his own demons, he has turned to volunteer work, helping Windsor’s homeless.

“That’s a heck of a good impulse for someone to have,” Lenzin said. “He is not an inherently bad person. He is a good person with problems.”

McKay has three prior convictions for drunk driving, the latest in 2010, and one conviction for taking a vehicle without the owner’s consent.

Superior Court Justice Renee Pomerance is to sentence McKay April 30.

ssacheli@windsorstar.com or on Twitter @winstarsacheli

A Windsor woman who steals, then steals some more, was handed a shortened jail sentence Thursday so she doesn’t miss out on a bed at a native treatment centre in Blind River, Ont.

Ginelle Soney, 29, steals to feed a drug addiction. Last fall, she shoplifted $500 worth of allergy pills from the Food Basics store on Goyeau Street.

While out on bail, she and her cousin stole cigarettes and alcohol from an apartment on Ouellette Avenue. As the resident confronted her cousin about the theft, Soney stole the man’s wallet by picking his back pocket.

Soney made bail again, but just two days after her release, she was arrested again for shoplifting. This time, she took $311 worth of Smarties, M&Ms and Hershey’s Kisses from a FreshCo store.

Soney’s lawyer, Linda McCurdy, said her client is addicted to Oxycontin.  Soney has been in contact with the Can-Am Friendship Centre, which has found a bed for her at the Blind River Treatment Centre in two weeks.

McCurdy asked the judge to give Soney credit for 13 days she spent in jail between her arrests and to sentence her to an additional 12 days in jail.

Assistant Crown attorney Frank Schwalm thought a 30-day sentence was more in order, but did not oppose a shorter sentence.

“If it affords her an opportunity to set her life straight, then the Crown is not going to stand in her way,” he said.

Court heard Soney’s mother died when Soney was 15. She lost three brothers – one died in a fire, one drowned and another committed suicide. Her father died when she was 22. She dropped out of the school in Grade 11.

Her father and grandmother were subjected to residential schools, which had a residual effect on subsequent generations, McCurdy said.

Once her short jail term is over, Soney will be on probation for 18 months.

“You’ve obviously had some difficult issues in your life,” Ontario court Justice Ronald Marion told the woman. “This court ought to grant you the opportunity to seek help.”

ssacheli@windsorstar.com

A Windsor man charged with sparking the lockdown of a high school and St. Clair College earlier this year pleaded guilty in Ontario court Monday to unrelated drug charges.

Adam William Moroz, 20, was sentenced to seven further days in jail for six mixed-salts methamphetamine tablets found in the console of a car he was in on Jan. 18.

Police approached three young men sitting in a parked car in Harrow at 2:20 a.m. There was a glass bong in the back seat and the car had the smell of marijuana emanating from it.

Moroz, who gave police a false name upon his arrest, was on bail at the time and bound by conditions to abstain from non-medically prescribed drugs.

He was jailed for two days before being released again. Shortly thereafter, he was arrested again, charged with uttering threats for posting messages on Twitter about shooting up a school.

Riverside High School, where Moroz attended, and St. Clair College, where Moroz had previously attended, were both locked down following the threats. Staff at other area schools also locked their doors and kept students inside.

Moroz’s lawyer, Evelyn Lipton, told court Monday that Moroz has been expelled from high school. He has not been able to secure bail and will remain in jail until his trial on the threats charge in May.

ssacheli@windsorstar.com

The car matched the description of the one involved in a drive-by shooting. Sure enough, there was a gun inside.
Zakaria Abdinur, 25, was sentenced Monday to 3½ years in prison for the loaded Taurus Millennium Pro nine-millimetre handgun and two additional loaded magazines found in the centre console of the 2007 Toyota Camry he was found in on Feb. 1. The gun had been reported stolen from Michigan in 2009.
When he was searched by police, Abdunir was also found to have more than 29 grams of crack cocaine in his anus and nearly a gram more in his right shoe. He also had $1,231 in his pocket.
Police on routine patrol spotted the Camry about 1:20 a.m. parked in a lot off Glengarry Avenue. It matched the description of a car captured on video three nights earlier in a drive-by shooting at Elsmere Avenue and Niagara Street. Inside were three men.
Abdinur, the driver, pulled out of the lot. Police stopped the vehicle at gunpoint at Wyandotte Street East and McDougall Avenue.
Abdunir pleaded guilty Monday to possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking and three weapons offences.
With credit for the two months he has already spent in jail, Abdunir was sentenced to a further three years and four months in prison.
“It’s a dangerous mix of firearms and drugs,” said assistant Crown attorney Scott Kerwin, asking Ontario court Justice Gregory Campbell to impose four-year prison term.
Kerwin noted that Abdunir has a criminal record, including a conviction for assault. But Abdunir’s DNA was not found on the grip of the handgun, Kerwin conceded.
Defence lawyer Linda McCurdy told the court Abdunir immigrated to Canada from Somalia as a child. He is a permanent resident of Canada.
His father is dead and he has no contact with his mother. He plans to attend St. Clair College to study heating and cooling.
Campbell ordered Abdunir to provide a blood sample for the national DNA databank police use to solve crime. Abdunir is also banned for life from possessing any firearms or ammunition.
The two men in the car with Abdunir also pleaded guilty to drug charges Monday.
Iman A. Galbete, 25, was fined $200 for the 0.2 gram rock of crack cocaine found protruding from his anus when he was searched the night of the arrest. He, too, has a criminal record.
Defence lawyer Kirk Munroe said Galbete was born and raised in Toronto. His dad is a truck driver for a company based in Alberta and his mother is a school bus driver.
The other passenger, Ismail Rashid Ismail, had all charges related to the traffic stop withdrawn Monday. But he pleaded guilty to drug charges from an unrelated arrest on July 31, 2013.
Drug officers were at a building on University Avenue West to raid an apartment. Ismail spotted police and began to run, hiding out behind a shed on McKay Avenue. When searched, Ismail was found carrying two baggies of crack cocaine totaling seven grams.
Defence lawyer Maria Carroccia could offer no explanation for why Ismail ran upon seeing police. The search warrant had nothing to do with him and was for an unrelated apartment.
Ismail, who has a criminal record for drug convictions, was on bail at the time.
The judge Monday sentenced Ismail to 90 days in jail. With time already served, Ismail will serve another 25 days.
“It looks like you’re choosing a life of crime here,” Campbell told the man. “I hope you can turn it around.”
None of the three men were charged in connection with the drive-by shooting, one of three that occurred in a one-month period.
ssacheli@windsorstar.com

CHATHAM A Superior Court judge Wednesday smiled sweetly at a 17-year-old mother before saying she will rule Monday on whether the girl’s infant daughter will be placed in foster care in Quebec.

The infant is one of 13 children of the Lev Tahor, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish community that settled in Chatham after fleeing child protection proceedings in Quebec. The children are to be placed with Hasidic families in Montreal for 30 days, a Quebec court has ruled. An Ontario court judge ruled the Quebec order should be enforced, but the parents have appealed.

“There are a number of silent and invisible little human beings in this courtroom and they weigh heavily on my mind and it is only them that I am concerned about,” Justice Lynda Templeton, the appeal judge, said Wednesday. After hearing two hours of submissions from three lawyers involved in the case, Templeton said the children should be everyone’s sole focus, “regardless of the outcome of this appeal.”

Templeton opened court Wednesday saying she has contacted police about someone trying to interfere with the court proceeding and influence her decision.

An envelope postmarked in Brooklyn, N.Y., came in the mail addressed to her. In it where two magazines sealed in clear plastic, one showing a cover story about the Lev Tahor. She did not unseal the magazines.

“I have no idea what this is all about,” said the judge. “I am extremely disturbed that anyone in support of the community or in disagreement with the community would send information to a judge,” she said, speaking slowly and deliberately. “I see this solely as an attempt to influence a member of the judiciary… It will not be countenanced.”

It was the third attempt by someone to contact her.

A person purporting to be a “paralegal and friend” of the Lev Tahor tried to contact the judge by phone in advance of Wednesday’s hearing. “I did not take the call,” Templeton said. “It is entirely inappropriate to contact any judge personally.”

Families involved in the dispute have gone public with “open letters” to the judge, emailing them to media outlets and posting them on websites.

“I have not received any such letter nor have I read any such letter,” the judge said.

The case has been bogged down with several motions from the many lawyers involved, including the parents of the families wishing to introduce fresh evidence and lawyers for some of the children and their parents asking that publication bans be extended to include court documents. An Ontario court is hearing other child apprehension matters involving the community and separate immigration proceedings have begun.

Wednesday, Templeton said she would not entertain anything but submissions on the appeal itself, urging everyone to “refocus on the children.”

Chatham-Kent Children’s Services launched the court proceeding late last year after Lev Tahor families fled their community in Ste. Agathe des Monts, near Montreal amid allegations of abuse, neglect, underage marriage and substandard education. The child-protection agency in Chatham asked an Ontario court judge to give effect to an order out of Quebec to have the children placed in temporary care.

The parents opposed, arguing that an Ontario court lacked jurisdiction to enforce a Quebec order and their right to freedom of religion, security of the person and and their right to move freely within Canada were being denied.

Ontario court Justice Stephen Fuerth ruled against the parents in February, ordering the children returned to Quebec. He stayed the order for 30 days to give the parents time to appeal. On the eve of the appeal deadline, the parents removed their children from the jurisdiction. Six children and their parents are currently in Guatemala. Other children apprehended in Trinidad and Tobago, are currently in foster care in Toronto.

“The parents yet again fled the jurisdiction,” children’s services lawyer Lorree Hodgson-Harris told the court. “What’s changed here? Really nothing… The court order out of Quebec is still valid.”

The lawyer for the parents argued Hodgson-Harris used the wrong legislation to gain custody of the children and enforce the Quebec order.

ssacheli@windsorstar.com or Twitter @winstarsacheli