Former doctor Nick Rathe accuses police of bias at his public mischief trial

Charges of aggravated assault and common assault were dropped against a young man caught up in the fatal downtown stabbing of a University of Windsor student on Oct. 19, 2013.

Ahmed Jaber, who was one of five men stabbed during a wild street fight, walked out of Ontario court Tuesday with a big smile on his face following the decision of Justice Lloyd Dean.

“He’s very happy,” defence lawyer Frank Miller said on his client’s behalf. “We were always confident Mr. Jaber was going to be acquitted. It was a question of waiting to get the matter through.”

Windsor criminal lawyer Frank Miller. (Windsor Star files)

The Crown told Dean there was no prospect for conviction on either charge.

Gautham (Kevin) Kugathasan, 19, was fatally stabbed during a brawl that started at the now defunct Mynt Nightclub and spilled out to the street.

Late last year, murder charges were dropped against Dwayne Nicholas Pierce.

Jaber, 24, was charged with common assault involving the victim and aggravated assault against another man.

Miller said DNA evidence played a role in the decision regarding the aggravated assault charge.

“There was no way to put the knife in his hand,” Miller said. “There was really no way to go forward on that.”

Miller said the common assault charge depended on “poor quality video” with no clear way to identify the victim or the assailant.

“I think justice was done in the end,” Miller said.

Miller noted his client has complied with “rigorous bail conditions” for the past 15 months.

Jaber was stabbed in the head during the brawl but “he’s OK now,” Miller said.

Two other men are still facing charges from the melee but neither is charged with harming Kugathasan. Abdul Al-Bousaleh, 24, is charged with aggravated assault and possession of a weapon dangerous to the public peace. Ali Mahmoud Ahmed, 31, is charged with possession of a dangerous weapon.

mcaton@windsorstar.com or on Twitter @WinStarCaton

DETROIT

An American trucker who took a wrong turn onto the Ambassador Bridge ended up behind bars for possession of firearms.

The 58-year-old Florida man unwittingly ended up on the Canadian side of the bridge Jan. 17. The Canadian Border Service Agency escorted the man back to the United States after he declared a .45-calibre handgun, a 12-guage shotgun and .38-calibre revolver.

At U.S. Customs and Border Protection, a computer check revealed the man had a criminal record that included convictions for carrying concealed weapons and drug possession. As a felon, he was prohibited from possessing firearms.

The man and his guns are now in the custody of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

“Our co-operation with CBSA is vital in taking prohibited and illegal weapons off the streets of our communities,” Detroit port director Roderick Blanchard said Wednesday in announcing the arrest. “Teamwork such as this leads to positive outcomes for everyone.”

Dr. Nick Rathe got a patient hooked on Oxycontin then began to sleep with her, giving her money for daycare and a car, the woman testified Thursday.

Michelle Timothy told Rathe’s public mischief trial that she was the former Belle River doctor’s mistress for about a year. It was during their affair that Rathe accompanied her to Windsor Hyundai in January 2006, to co-sign a car loan, Timothy testified.

Rathe, 51, is accused of filing a bogus police report alleging Timothy forged his name on the loan documents.

Michelle Timothy leaves the Superior Court of Justice in Windsor, ON. on Thursday, Jan. 22, 2015. She is a witness in the Dr. Charles Nicholas Rathe trial. (DAN JANISSE/The Windsor Star) (

Michelle Timothy leaves the Superior Court of Justice in Windsor on Thursday, Jan. 22, 2015. (DAN JANISSE/The Windsor Star) (

He told police Timothy had stolen his driver’s licence and financial information and had another man impersonate him at the dealership.

At the time Rathe went to police, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario was investigating a complaint against him by Timothy. Rathe in 2012 lost his licence to practise medicine.

Timothy, 30, told the court Rathe supported her getting a new car. “I was driving a really old car. I needed it to go back and forth between school,” she testified.

When Timothy settled on a Tiburon, Rathe accompanied her to the dealership to co-sign the loan. Because the car was to be in her name, Timothy needed documentation showing she had a job, she said. Rathe wrote a note on a prescription pad that she was his employee, she said, identifying a note entered as a court exhibit at trial.

Windsor Hyundai’s former financial manager testified Thursday that he remembered Timothy and Rathe coming in together and signing the loan documents. “I don’t forget a face,” Lorenz Brochert testified.

Brochert later picked Rathe out of a photo lineup when OPP investigators were trying to determine the identity of the man who signed the loan documents.

Under cross-examination by Rathe, who is representing himself at trial, Brochert said, “It’s not everyday that a man your age comes in with a girl to co-sign a loan.”

Brochert said, from the way Timothy spoke to Rathe, it was clear they were in a relationship – “I hate to say it, but a Girl Friday situation… someone on the side.”

Timothy said she set up a bank account at the TD branch on Ottawa Street and Rathe would give her cash each month to deposit to cover the car payments.

Once, Rathe wrote her a cheque to pay for daycare and books, she testified. Under cross-examination, she was unclear on the amount.

“He didn’t want to take out too much at once because he didn’t want his wife to notice.”

Suddenly the money stopped. So did the prescriptions for Oxy, Timothy said.

“He stopped seeing me.”

Timothy said she is “absolutely” sure Rathe knew she was addicted to the drug he had first prescribed her for a sore back.

Without it, she went into withdrawal.

“They were my whole life,” she said of the pills. “I became really addicted to them. I got really sick. I became dependent on them.”

Timothy admitted to blackmailing Rathe, sending him letters in which she threatened to tell his wife about their affair and going after his medical licence.

She did both.

“I just snapped I guess.”

Timothy said she got rid of the car after finding a baggie of cocaine in the gas tank. She said someone had set her up, stashing the drugs then reporting her as a drug dealer to police. She said she was never charged because she called police herself upon finding the drugs.

Rathe, in a rambling opening statement to the judge at the beginning of trial on Monday, said he had hired Timothy to work in his office. He said he fired her because she was unreliable.

He also stopped seeing her as a patient when he heard “third-hand” that she had been selling the prescriptions he gave to her.

Timothy testified with words flying out of her mouth like machine-gun fire. She fidgeted in her seat, her face a flurry of sniffles and tics.

When Brochert, the now-retired car dealer, took the stand, he was serene by comparison.

Rathe accused Brochert of being motivated to lie because he didn’t want to admit someone like Timothy had so easily defrauded him. “That’s why you’re against me,” Rathe said.

Brochert replied calmly. “I have no agenda here, sir… It was you in my office. It was you who signed the deal.”

ssacheli@windsorstar.com or on Twitter @WinStarSacheli

A Windsor judge Monday dismissed drunk driving charges against a man who says he was roughed up by police during an illegal arrest.

On April 26, 2011, Matthew Donnelly was a law student at the University of Windsor. He was returning home to his Riverside Drive apartment about 2 a.m. when constables Brian Caffarena and Ronald Bercovici followed him to the third floor of his parking garage. At his trial last fall, Donnelly said the officers swore at him before throwing him to the ground and going through his wallet.

In ruling on the case Monday, Ontario court Justice Lloyd Dean said he believed Donnelly. Dean said the officers never told the man why he was being stopped and showed “an unacceptable, serious disregard for Mr. Donnelly’s rights.”

The police officers testified Donnelly was injured when he fell getting out of his car. Dean stopped short of calling the officers liars, but said he did not find their testimony “credible or reliable.”

The officers testified they first noticed Donnelly driving eastbound on University Avenue. One estimated Donnelly’s speed at 90 kilometres per hour as he approached Caron Avenue and turned north toward Riverside Drive. The pavement was wet and the car fishtailed slightly as it made the turn. The officers said Donnelly did not signal the turn.

Donnelly was driving a 2006 Dodge Charger. The officers testified they suspected the car was stolen because Chrysler vehicles are often the targets of thieves. They were in a high-crime part of the city.

Their “hunch,” which turned out to be incorrect anyway, was not enough to stop and detain Donnelly, Dean ruled. Dean called the arrest “arbitrary.”

The officers gave differing testimony about whether the lights and sirens were on when they stopped Donnelly in the parking garage and how they approached him once he got out of his car, the judge noted. But their testimony was “eerily similar” in other respects.

The officers testified Donnelly stumbled as he got out of his car, falling on his face. But the judge ruled Donnelly’s injuries – a bleeding left knee and abrasions to his left palm and the left side of his face – were more consistent with the officers throwing the man to the ground just as he described.

The officers took Donnelly back to police headquarters where his breath was tested for alcohol. While the test showed Donnelly had more than the legal limit of alcohol in his system, the judge ruled the results inadmissible because police had no legal reason to stop Donnelly in the first place.

As is usual in most drunk driving cases, police charged Donnelly with both having more than 80 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood and driving while impaired.

The judge ruled there was no evidence Donnelly was impaired.

Donnelly had no trouble turning into the parking garage where he had to make a series of tight turns up to the third floor. He wheeled into a parking spot next to a pole.

The judge said Donnelly’s ability to negotiate the parking garage contradicted the officers’ testimony that the man was “in a falling down, drunken state.”

Bercovici and Caffarena testified Donnelly’s eyes were glassy, his speech was slurred and he had alcohol on his breath. The breath technician at headquarters backed up their story, testifying that Donnelly was unsteady on his feet as he walked from the holding cell to the room where the breath test was administered.

Yet the video of the testing showed Donnelly’s speech was fine as he made coherent small talk with the officer about the upcoming NHL playoffs. He had no trouble getting in and out of his chair twice during the test.

Donnelly admitted to drinking beer before getting behind the wheel. “It’s not a question of whether he had been drinking. He admitted he’d been drinking,” the judge said. “It’s whether his ability was impaired.”

Defence lawyer Patrick Ducharme praised the judge’s decision, saying police can’t just stop anyone they please.

“I think the police, generally speaking, know that just because of the part of the city you’re in and the type of car you’re driving doesn’t mean they can stop you… It’s the arbitrariness of it.”

He said he was glad the judge believed Donnelly and not the police. “His rights were violated.”

Donnelly, now 28, works in Toronto as a corporate lawyer. He did not attend court and could not be reached for comment.

ssacheli@windsorstar.com or Twitter @WinStarSacheli

Twitter@WinStarSacheli

Did Dr. Nick Rathe make up a story about being the victim of a fraud or did another man indeed impersonate him at a car dealership and sign his name on loan documents?

A Superior Court judge is expected to make that determination next month when he rules in the public mischief trial of the former Belle River family doctor.

Rathe is charged for allegedly sending police on a wild goose chase in 2006. He claimed that a young woman he had hired as an office worker had taken his driver’s licence and used it to have another man impersonate him when she took out a loan on a used Hyundai Tiburon.

The woman, Michelle Timothy, testified Rathe accompanied her to Windsor Hyundai, saying she and Rathe were lovers at the time. Timothy later was one of several former patients who complained to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, which stripped Rathe of his medical licence in 2012.

During Rathe’s trial last week, court also heard a dealership salesman and financial manager testify they were certain it was Rathe and not some other man who signed the loan documents.

Rathe, who was convicted of assault in 2007 in relation to a road rage incident involving another woman, represented himself at trial. Superior Court Justice Christopher Bondy presided over the trial, coaching Rathe through his cross-examination of Crown witnesses. Bondy has reserved his judgment.

Apart from giving an opening address at the start of the trial, Rathe did not testify in his own defence.

A cocaine dealer claims she is a battered wife who sold little bits of her husband’s drug inventory to make money to flee the abusive relationship.

But a man who says he was her former lover told a different story when he testified against her in Superior Court Tuesday.

Sabrina Lacommare, 49, was arrested in June 2011 with 10 baggies of cocaine and a big wad of cash in her purse.

When police raided her Lakeshore home that same day, they found more coke, scales, packaging materials and more than $8,200 in Canadian and U.S. cash.

Defence lawyer Patrick Ducharme told the court all the cocaine belonged to Lacommare’s abusive husband, Mark Anthony Trudel. While Trudel was in Calgary, Lacommare took some of the cocaine her husband had hidden in their home and sold it to his customers, Ducharme said.

But Steve Hillman told a different story. Hillman said he met Lacommare in August 2010 at Edge Nutrition where he worked. Lacommare would visit him and they became friends, then lovers.

Lacommare, a petite blond, had no job, but was always flush with cash and “dressed to the nines,” Hillman said.

When the relationship became intimate, Lacommare disclosed that she sold cocaine for a living, Hillman testified. She had been doing it for eight years and made $1,000 a day at it, Hillman said Lacommare told him.

Hillman said Lacommare carried a cellphone that rang incessantly. Lacommare would have brief conversations then would run off to meet her customers.

Hillman said Lacommare’s cocaine would come in parcels mailed in Calgary. She would pick it up at the post office in Belle River, then hide it in her home.

Under questioning by federal drug prosecutor Richard Pollock, Hillman said he never noticed any injuries to Lacommare that would suggest she was being abused. In fact, Hillman testified, Lacommare told him she once punched her husband in the face and threw a set of keys at him when she suspected he was cheating on her.

Hillman said their relationship petered out after she was arrested.

Under cross-examination, Hillman testified he was collecting a provincial disability pension and was supplementing that income by working under the table at his friend’s store. He was once caught smuggling a nutritional supplement over the border. Ducharme called Hillman a habitual liar.

Ducharme also questioned Hillman about a sex tape he made with Lacommare. Hillman testified Lacommare concoted a story that Hillman had made the tape without Lacommare’s knowledge and emailed clips from it to people, including her husband. Hillman said when he showed the video to police, they dropped their investigation because it was clear Lacommare knew about the recording because she was holding the camera.

Lacommare also tried to get a restraining order against Hillman.

“She was trying to ruin my credibility because she knew I’d be testifying here today.”

Lacommare pleaded guilty Monday to one count of possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking. Her husband had faced the same charges, but the prosecution withdrew them after police determined Trudel had been out of the province at the time of the raid.

Superior Court Justice Renee Pomerance is hearing testimony this week in advance of sentencing.

A disciplinary hearing for a Windsor lawyer accused of misappropriating up $15 million from clients has been adjourned to March.

Claudio Martini, 50, was to have a hearing before a tribunal of the Law Society of Upper Canada, the licensing body for lawyers in the province. In advance of the hearing, Martini’s lawyer contacted the law society’s disciplinary tribunal asking for more time to review the case.

The tribunal granted the adjournment. Martini’s licence remains suspended and his trust accounts are frozen.

Twitter @WinStarSacheli

A Windsor man who once served penitentiary time for abducting a 14-year-old girl he’d met over the Internet has been ordered to stand trial on child pornography charges.

Daniel Nickolson, 48, had a preliminary hearing over two days this week. At the conclusion, Ontario court Justice Marietta Roberts ordered him to stand trial on 12 charges — possessing, distributing and accessing child pornography, Internet luring, uttering threats and extortion.

A publication ban prohibits reporting on the evidence heard at the preliminary hearing.

Nickolson is facing another raft of similar charges that are being prosecuted separately. A preliminary hearing in that case is scheduled for February.

In 2009, Nickolson was sentenced to four years in prison for convincing a girl in Saskatchewan to run away from home to live with him. Nickolson was arrested on a bus in Winnipeg as he returned to Ontario with the girl. He pleaded guilty to child abduction and Internet luring.

Nickolson’s case heard in court this week has been transferred to Superior Court for trial. It will be spoken to for the first time there in March.

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He slammed her face against the kitchen counter, then threw her to the floor.

He belittled her. He choked her. When she was bedridden with cancer, he left her without food or water.

A weeping Sabrina Lacommare testified Thursday to abuse she suffered at the hands of her husband, Mark Anthony Trudel.

But Trudel is not on trial and no one has testified to corroborate Lacommare’s story.

Lacommare, 49, pleaded guilty this week to possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking. She took to the witness stand Thursday in her bid for leniency in sentencing.

Lacommare was arrested in June 2011 with 14 grams of cocaine in her purse, distributed into 10 packets ready for sale. Also in her purse, she had $1,345 in Canadian cash and another US$190. In her car, an older model Grand Prix, police found a notebook containing a debt list.

Lacommare told Superior Court Justice Renee Pomerance the cocaine she had already sold and the packets still in her purse belonged to Trudel. She said Trudel was a drug dealer and had been throughout their marriage.

Trudel was in Calgary at the time, meeting with drug contacts. Lacommare said she planned to sell some of the cocaine Trudel had stashed in their Lakeshore home to make enough money to flee the abusive marriage while Trudel was away.

Court has heard police found cocaine and cash stashed throughout the kitchen. Behind a panel above the fridge were four packets of cocaine, totalling four ounces. In a drawer in the island there were two bags – 17 grams in one and 1.8 grams in another labelled, “Doug.”

There was $3,000 found in a pink purse in a kitchen drawer, and another US$120 in a billfold on the kitchen counter. In the kitchen pantry was another $3,560, $2000 of which was bundled with a rubber band and labelled, “June 3” in handwriting Lacommare admitted was hers.

Federal drug prosecutor Richard Pollock asked Lacommare, with all the money in the house and her husband due home in days, why she hadn’t already left.

Lacommare said she took small amounts of cocaine to sell, but would never dream of leaving with her husband’s money.

“He would hunt me down and kill me.”

After her arrest, Lacommare said her lawyer, Patrick Ducharme, suggested she co-operate with police. She offered a statement as to her husband’s drug dealing and the names of some of his customers. Two, she said, were police officers.

Also after her arrest, Lacommare went to police complaining of assault, threats and harassment. Trudel was charged on three occasions. The first two times the charges were withdrawn or dismissed. In August 2012, Trudel was convicted of harassing Lacommare and was sentenced to 53 days in jail.

Lacommare’s former lover testified the woman was dealing drugs for eight years before she was arrested. Steve Hillman testified he never saw any injuries on her body suggesting abuse.

Lacommare testified Thursday that Hillman was lying and conspiring with Trudel to discredit her.

The hearing is set to continue into February.

The people who tore Ali Husnaim’s eye socket will never be convicted for it — but at least he’ll have $9,000 in compensation.

Husnaim was awarded the money after a hearing of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board in Windsor on Thursday.

“We believe you,” said adjudicator M. Saleem Akhtar. “You were the victim of a crime by three alleged offenders, right at your own residence.”

Akhtar and fellow adjudicator Kristen Kurzuk agreed that Husnaim suffered serious physical and emotional injuries that warranted monetary recompense — despite the fact that the case didn’t result in the conviction of any of Husnaim’s attackers.

The incident took place more than two years ago. It began on the evening of Sept. 29, 2012.

Husnaim — a University of Windsor student with a clean record — received a text from a young woman he knew only through Facebook. She asked if she and her friends could hang out at his dorm. He agreed.

The girl and three other females who Husnaim didn’t know arrived with a 60-ounce bottle of Seagram’s 83 whiskey.

There was drinking. Husnaim admits he became intoxicated.

Husnaim allowed one of the girls to use his Blackberry. According to Husnaim, she did not return it.

An argument ensued over the missing cellphone, culminating in a tussle on the ground between Husnaim and at least two of the females he didn’t know.

“They were rowdy, they were aggressive, they were drunk,” Husnaim recalled. “I was surprised and confused… I drank too, but these girls drank way more than me.”

One of the girls who had ended up on the ground angrily told Husnaim she was going to get her boyfriend to beat him up. Then all the girls left in a cab.

Husnaim was not aware that the girl who had threatened him was 16 years old and pregnant by a 21-year-old male who was known to police.

Husnaim went to bed. A few hours later, he was awakened by pounding on the door of his room.

He could hear multiple male voices cursing at him and demanding that he come out.

With no cellphone to call for help, Husnaim opened the door. He was immediately dragged out and assaulted by three men.

Det. David Tennent of Windsor police told the board that during the altercation, Husnaim fell and his face caught on a door handle.

The door handle broke Husnaim’s right orbital bone, split his lower eyelid and ripped open his tear duct.

“This young man’s injuries over a cellphone were ridiculous,” Tennent said.

The next thing that Husnaim remembers was being in an ambulance. His injuries required two days in hospital, two surgical procedures, and two months of wearing an eye patch.

Three males were charged for the break-in and subsequent attack. But when the case went to trial, the judge ordered the charges withdrawn due to inconsistencies in the accounts of what happened and the lack of any third-party witnesses.

“I was very surprised the judge did not convict (the primary assailant),” Tennent told the compensation board.

Police did not pursue charges against the 16-year-old girl — who Tennent believes “set the chain of events in motion” — due to her eventual co-operation with police and her circumstances.

Tennent said the girl’s parents had no idea she was pregnant. They found out when police told them at the downtown station.

To recover from his injuries, Husnaim went back to his family’s home in Mississauga. He took online courses for the next semester, but was advised by his doctor not to look at computer screens for more than two hours at a time.

Husnaim told the board he had flashbacks and nightmares about the incident for half a year afterward. “It just wouldn’t leave my mind alone.”

Now enrolled in criminology classes again, Husnaim said he keeps his drinking in moderation and he’s “way more careful in choosing my friends.”

dchen@windsorstar.com

Prominent Windsor labour lawyer George King took his oath of office Friday as he became Windsor’s newest judge of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.

Justice King was a senior partner with McTague Law Firm LLP and represented clients like the City of Windsor, Enwin Utilities, the casino and police boards.

He took his oaths of office in front of presiding Justice Frank Marrocco and Madam Justice Renee Pomerance in Superior Court.

Mr. Justice Duncan Grace assisted George King, left, with Superior Court Judges’ judicial robes and sash and Mr. Justice King addressed the court where many friends, family, legal associates, sitting Justices and community leaders attended the event on Friday, Jan. 30, 2015. Mr. Justice King’s wife, Kim, and father George King, right, watch the robing ceremony. (NICK BRANCACCIO/The Windsor Star)

Super Bowl XLIX hasn’t even begun, but the game has already gone into overtime for one captive audience.

Staff at Windsor’s Southwest Detention Centre will work late Sunday to allow inmates to watch the NFL championship game.

“The minor cost associated with the extra work is inconsequential compared to the potential benefits of continued positive inmate behaviour,” Brent Ross, spokesman for the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services, said Friday.

Ross said staff will work an additional hour Sunday to allow inmates to watch the game in its entirety. Normally, inmates would be back in their cells without access to televisions.

The game is a reward for good behaviour.

“An important part of inmate rehabilitation is helping them understand the importance of taking responsibility for their actions,” Ross said. “This is one of ways we are working to ensure that we are providing an environment that focuses on rehabilitation and reintegration.”

The Ministry did not comment on how much it will cost in overtime wages, but called the cost “minor.”

ssacheli@windsorstar.com or on Twitter @WinStarSacheli

Cellphone contract scams. Identity theft. Fraudulent credit cards. Illegally imported cars.

Superior Court Monday heard Windsor man Ahmad Aref Sannan had his fingers in all manner of fraud. But Sannan, it’s expected, will argue police got the evidence against him illegally.

Sannan, 49, is on trial, charged with 68 crimes all related to fraud. In his Kenilworth Drive home, police found Lebanese and Morrocan passports, Canadian citizenship documents, U.S. immigration cards, Canadian social insurance number cards, Ontario photo health cards and credit cards under dozens of names. Also found was a Transport Canada Registrar of Imported Vehicles stamp.

Monday, court heard testimony related to his alleged role in a 2010 scheme that used stolen identities to get expensive smartphones from Future Shop.

Sannan is accused of signing long-term contracts under assumed names, getting the cellphones at a nominal charge or for free at the time of purchase. It’s alleged he would then resell the phones without Future Shop or the cellphone company ever getting paid.

Two Future Shop employees – Adel Abdulkader and Farshad Masheli – pleaded guilty in 2011 to their roles in the scheme. They are expected to testify against Sannan.

Sean Seebransingh testified Monday he was the manager at Future Shop when he learned his store was being defrauded through the cellphone scheme.

He was at a local Chrysler dealership getting his car detailed one day when a worker there approached him about a phone he had purchased online. Seebransingh said the worker told him the phone had been purchased originally at Future Shop, but the cellphone company insisted the original purchase was fraudulent.

Seebransingh brought the information to Terry Dipple, who was then manager of the cellphone department at Future Shop. Dipple said he traced the origin of the phone and confirmed it had indeed been purchased at Future Shop.

Dipple said he subsequently received complaints from people who said they were being billed for cellphones they had never purchased. “I received two complaints. I know there were more than that.”

The store had surveillance video that showed the fraudulent purchases, Dipple said. He was at the store when one employee was arrested and led out in handcuffs by police.

Assistant Crown attorney Gary Nikota filed with the court more than 50 cell phone contracts police allege were fraudulent.

Dipple explained that, under the contracts, customers could get phones for free if they signed up for three-year contracts. In some of the contracts, customers would pay $29 for a BlackBerry worth $399, and get a $50 Future Shop gift card as a bonus.

As part of the investigation into the scam, police raided Sannan’s home in October 2010. All but two of the 68 charges Sannan faces relate to items found during that search.

Defence lawyer Frank Miller questions the legality of the search, claiming Sannan’s constitutional rights were violated.

In a separate proceeding Sannan and his family are suing Windsor police for malicious prosecution. His $5.5-million lawsuit, launched in 2012, is still before the courts.

Sannan’s criminal trial is scheduled to continue before Superior Court Justice Scott Campbell for three weeks.

Twitter@WinStarSacheli

Baldev Singh, where are you?

The Toronto-area trucker, convicted of trying to smuggle 69 kilograms of cocaine into Canada, did not show up for court in Windsor Tuesday. He didn’t show up in December either when he was supposed to have a sentencing hearing.

The federal Crown wants Singh sentenced in absentia to 12 to 15 years in prison.

But Superior Court Justice Renee Pomerance isn’t sure that’s the right thing to do.

“It is a potentially unfit sentence that is merely symbolic.”

Singh, 45, was convicted in September after testifying at trial that he had no knowledge he was transporting cocaine when he crossed the Ambassador Bridge on the morning of March 19, 2009.

Singh was caught when his truck was randomly selected for a training exercise with a drug sniffing dog. The handler was in the process of hiding a dummy stash in a crate in Singh’s trailer. When she removed a bag of oranges to hide the training aid, the officer found 21 bricks of cocaine in the crate.

Among the evidence connecting Singh to the drugs was cocaine residue found on suitcases in the cab of the truck. There were impressions on the top of the bins containing the oranges that matched the wheels on the suitcases. Investigators believe the cocaine had been transferred from the suitcases into the crate after all the crates had been loaded into the trailer.

Singh tried to argue he’d found the suitcases in the garbage.

Among other testimony heard at trial was that Singh’s truck had crossed the border bearing signs that read Omni. On the way back into Canada, the signs read East West Trucking Inc. Singh testified the company changed names while he was on his trip to Woodlake, Calif. He said new signs were waiting for him at a truck stop in Oklahoma City.

Pomerance in September ordered a background report on Singh before the sentencing hearing. The probation officer who was to prepare the report said he never showed up for his interview.

Pomerance said Tuesday that, without the information that report would provide, she would have difficulty determining what a fit sentence would be in the case. She doesn’t know if there are any mitigating facts she should consider.

But federal drug prosecutor Richard Pollock said Singh obviously doesn’t care for the court to know anything about his personal life. By absconding, the accused has waived his right to place that information before you.”

Pomerance responded: “He has forfeited his right to be heard, but has he forfeited his right to a fit sentence?”

Pomerance agreed accused people should not be allowed to “hijack” court proceedings. But this is not a trial, Pomerance said. Singh has already been convicted and could be sentenced when he is found.

She had reserved her decision in the case.

Singh had a lawyer at trial, but Pomerance let him off the record in December after he lost contact with Singh.

Singh was free on $210,000 bail when he fled. He put up $40,000 in cash and promised another $25,000 if he broke any conditions of his release. Two people promised to supervise Singh while he was free, backing up that promise with cash. Sarbjit Kaur Cheema, 37, of Brampton, deposited $5,000 in cash with the court. Pritam Hansra, 58, also of Brampton, promised $140,000.

The Crown has begun proceedings to get that money.

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Former high school teacher Mark Baggio, convicted for having sex with students, Thursday blamed one his victims for her emotional troubles, saying the young woman has refused counselling and medication.

Baggio is fighting a civil lawsuit by the woman. He is legally liable for damages, Superior Court Justice Thomas Carey has already ruled. Now, the judge must assess how much Baggio will pay.

The woman, who originally claimed $6.8 million in damages, is now seeking just over $500,000 plus legal costs. She is also seeking damages for loss of future income, but that will be determined at a later time.

She is referred to in court documents as Jane Doe, her identity protected by a publication ban.

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 Jane Doe beginning in 2002 when she was 14 years old.

Baggio was convicted of the same crimes related to a second student. She also sued and has settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.

Richard Pollock, Jane Doe’s lawyer, said the abuse Baggio inflicted on her was exacerbated by the fact Baggio maintained his innocence and forced her to testify at his criminal trial.

During cross-examination at trial, she was accused of lying.

The emotional toll of the trial led her to drop out of university and psychiatric experts have said she shows symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

“She has been unable to move on from that experience,” Pollock told Carey.

Despite his criminal conviction, Baggio refused to admit he had a sexual relationship with the former student, prolonging the civil suit.

“He has continued to deny and he can continue to deny till kingdom come, but that comes at a price,” Pollock said.

He argued Jane Doe deserves punitive damages for the more than six years her civil case has languished, as well as the three years the case was before the criminal courts.

Baggio, who has no lawyer representing him in court, said he too, has suffered.

“I am trying to move forward just like everyone else,” Baggio said. “Personally, it’s been nine years, more than nine years.”

The judge appeared sympathetic. “This has taken a toll on you,” Carey said.

The judge went on to compliment Baggio’s deportment in court.

Carey reserved his decision on damages. According to civil court rules, he must deliver a judgment within three months.

ssacheli@windsorstar.com or Twitter@WinStarSacheli

John Mackenzie was back in jail Friday, nine months after appealing his conviction of killing a friend’s dog by taping its muzzle shut and tying it to a tree.

The Belle River man was 56 in May of last year when a provincial judge found him guilty of killing the animal. Mackenzie was sentenced to four months in prison, but went home on bail just four hours later after filing his appeal.

His second legal battle, this time in Superior Court, didn’t go much better. After looking at the evidence, Justice Scott Campbell agreed with his provincial counterpart’s decision.

Campbell said it was “reasonable” to conclude that anyone with common sense should know the possible outcomes of taping a dog’s muzzle, while it was tied up with a choke collar.

Evidence heard at the original trial showed that in April 2012, Mackenzie was looking after his friend’s 40-kg German shepherd. Mackenzie kept the animal tied to a tree in the front yard of his home on County Road 22.

The animal, tied up with a choke collar, reportedly barked at Mackenzie and bit him. Mackenzie then wrapped electrical tape around the dog’s muzzle. Two hours later, the dog was dead.

At the original trial, Ontario Justice Gregory Campbell called the treatment of the dog “wanton and callous.”

In the Superior Court battle, defence lawyer Frank Miller argued the provincial judge drew his own conclusions about whether Mackenzie knew his actions would kill the dog. Miller claims the findings of the court contradict evidence presented by a veterinarian expert witness during the trial.

In addition to the four months in prison for killing the dog and causing unusual pain and suffering, Mackenzie received two years probation. He cannot own an animal for 10 years.

Mackenzie can again appeal the decision to the Supreme Court, according to Miller, but the defence lawyer said he’ll wait to hear from his client. That call may come on the weekend, Miller explained.

dspalding@windsorstar.com or on Twitter @Derek_Spalding

On the day local cocaine kingpin Shawn Joseph Evon was arrested, he forgave $100,000 in drug debts.

It was no small sum, even for a man with more than $320,000 in cash under a floorboard in his bedroom, and another $2,633 scattered about the room. But Evon would spend the next three years in jail, so there would be no way for him to collect.

“Believe me or not, I walked away from it all,” Evon said Friday during a hearing in Superior Court to determine what should become of the cash police seized.

Defence lawyer Maria Carroccia argued a portion of it should come to her in legal fees. Prosecutor Richard Pollock argued Evon’s money is proceeds of crime and should go into federal coffers. Pollock suggested Evon should have applied for Legal Aid if he couldn’t afford a lawyer.

Evon, 37, was one of 13 people arrested in pre-dawn raids Jan. 9, 2012. Evon had been the target of a 4½ -month investigation that led police to members of his syndicate.

Earlier Friday, Jason Andrew Potter was sentenced to 2½ years in prison for his role in the drug operation. Potter was one of Evon’s runners and he had 2.2 kilograms of powdered cocaine and 400 grams of crack cocaine in his Sandwich Street apartment. The drugs belonged to Evon, who used the apartment as a stash house.

In a rare glimpse into the lifestyle of drug kingpins, Evon took to the witness stand Friday to detail his finances from his decade-long career as a dealer. In addition to the stash of cash, Evon owned four acres of land on County Road 50 in Colchester, and was in the process of building a house on the property when he was arrested. He had already sunk $200,000 in the home before it was seized by police under proceeds of crime legislation.

The house and property was in the name of his parents, William and Sandra Evon. Evon admitted to hiding assets by putting them in the names of his parents and others. He said he did this with vehicles, to save money on insurance.

Evon lived in his parents’ home on Matchette Road. He paid rent, he said, insisting the home was not his. The vehicles his parents drove, including his father’s Harley Davidson motorcycle, did not belong to him.

Evon admitted to having no legitimate means of support. His parents, however, held down jobs, he said.

Among Evon’s vehicles was a Cadillac Escalade he said he sold after his arrest to pay the legal fees associated with the Colchester property and to pay Carroccia a $10,000 retainer.

He liked buying cars that were insurance writeoffs, and fixing them up, he said. The Escalade was one such car.

At the time of his arrest, Evon was dating Danielle Patrick. They were in bed together at the time of the raid. Evon said he bought Patrick about $10,000 worth of jewelry during the year they were together.

But Evon had some bling of his own. In a safe under the floorboards, tucked in with the wad of cash, was a chain-link necklace fashioned out of $12,000 worth of gold.

Evon said he used his drug proceeds to buy “necessities and luxuries.” He supported Patrick, helped his parents with bills and financially supported a child he had fathered with another woman.

At the time of his January 2012 arrest, Evon was out on bail pending appeal of a 2011 conviction for seven drug offences. Police got court permission to tap his phones, leading them to arrest his associates. In addition to Potter, Gerald Lauzon, Raymond Caza, Michael Broughton and Yvette Lucier were convicted and sentenced for their role in the ring.

Evon has pleaded guilty to six crimes related to trafficking in cocaine and crack cocaine and possessing proceeds of crime. He is to be sentenced next month by Justice Renee Pomerance who is also to rule on the money issue.

An Essex County tomato processor was fined $70,000 Monday after an employee lost his leg when he slipped and fell into a mechanized waste trough.

Sun-Brite Foods pleaded guilty Monday to failing to ensure necessary measures and procedures listed under the Ontario Health and Safety Act.

The accident happened Sept. 5, 2013, in the company’s Ruthven canning and processing facility at 1532 County Road 34.

The injured man, from Mexico, was working as a tomato peeler. He tried to step over a waste trough. He slipped and his foot dropped into the trough where it got caught on a powered auger. Part of his leg had to be amputated.

A lawyer for the province said there should have been a steel mesh guard over the trough. But it wasn’t in place, which left the auger exposed. The floor was also wet.

Defence lawyer Patrick Ducharme said in court the guard was installed but it had been removed. It was later found near the machine. He said it’s unknown why someone removed it.

But he added that doesn’t change the fact that it was the company’s responsibility to ensure the guard was in place.

“It was tragic and it was preventable,” said Ducharme. “There wasn’t a guard and there should have been a guard.”

Ducharme said the worker, who now has a prosthetic leg, is back in Mexico.

Windsor’s newest Superior Court judge made his television debut in Miami in 1976.

Kirk Munroe was just three years out of law school and was working as an assistant state attorney in Florida. He was prosecuting two Miami beach cops who had burglarized a restaurant near the police station. In a test case that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, there were cameras in the courtroom.

“I hadn’t been around very long,” Munroe said Monday. “But I got thrown into these big deal cases.”

Munroe is among five new appointments to Ontario Superior Court. He will sit in Windsor where he has practised as a criminal defence lawyer for the past two decades.

Munroe was born and raised in Miami and attended law school at Boston University. He became a member of the Florida bar and tried cases in several U.S. states. After a stint with the Florida state’s attorney office, he was a lawyer in a small boutique firm that specialized in commercial litigation going after criminals who defrauded banks in South American and Europe.

In 1995, he moved to Essex County where he settled on his ancestral homestead on the shores of Lake Erie with his wife, Elizabeth, and three children.

He has been a sole practitioner with offices in Windsor and Kingsville since then.

Defence lawyer Maria Carroccia remembers when Munroe came to town, an experienced trial lawyer freshly minted by the Ontario bar. She has been co-counsel with him on as many as 100 serious cases.

“For me, his appointment is bittersweet,” she said. “I think he will be an excellent addition to the Superior Court bench, but I will miss trying cases with him. He is always well-prepared and thoughtful. He is a gentleman. He fought valiantly for his clients. He’s just an excellent advocate.”

Munroe is the past-president of the Criminal Lawyers’ Association of Windsor and Essex County, the position Carroccia now holds. He has been president of the Essex Law Association and has been a sessional instructor in criminal law at the University of Windsor since 2003.

This week, he was busy closing his practice. He has about 50 clients with cases pending who now need a new lawyer. And other firms are already vying to scoop up his longtime secretary.

Munroe will be sworn in March 2.