Immigration lawyer Sandra Saccucci Zaher was not in her right mind when she broke the law by fabricating a refugee claim for a client, her sentencing hearing heard Monday.

Zaher took the witness stand in Superior Court, testifying she was in physical and emotional pain in 2012, popping the anti-anxiety medication Lorazepam “like candy.” When an undercover police officer posing as a client came to her, mentioning his daughters back home in India, she thought of trauma from her own childhood and worry for her own teenage son. “It was all mixed up in my head.”

Zaher, 54, is facing federal penitentiary time for the crime of fabricating a refugee claim and two related offences under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. She was found guilty in July after a lengthy trial.

Her trial heard the RCMP had been tipped off that Zaher had concocted a story about political persecution for another client. The RCMP set up a sting operation, sending undercover officers to Zaher’s Windsor office and tapping her phones.

Zaher fabricated a story and told the officer to memorize it. She assured him he would not “get caught.”

Federal prosecutor Richard Pollock said Zaher’s “gaming” of Canada’s immigration system means a deserving refugee claimant somewhere in the world is deprived of the chance of coming here. If enough lawyers game the system, it could fall apart completely because Canadians will cease to support it.

Justice Renee Pomerance seemed to agree, saying, “The filing of false refugee claims has the potential to undermine public confidence in the entire system.”

Pollock said Zaher’s crime calls for a penitentiary sentence of three years. Zaher’s new lawyer, Maria Carroccia, asked for a sentence of less than two years, to be served on house arrest.

Calling Zaher a “broken person,” Carroccia had Dr. Andrea Steen, Zaher’s family doctor, testify Monday.

Steen told the court Zaher has chronic pain resulting from a car crash. Zaher broke her left collarbone and right leg in a head-on collision with a truck. Zaher is adverse to taking prescription pain medication, Steen said.

Steen also testified to referring Zaher to a psychiatrist for depression. Zaher had depression before being charged in 2012, Steen said. The charges, Steen said, took Zaher to “a dark place.”

Pomerance reserved a decision on sentencing until January.

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The Ontario Court of Appeal has ruled former Windsor Spitfire Ben Johnson can be released on bail while he challenges his sexual assault conviction.

But Johnson remained in custody Tuesday, the ruling from the appellate judge coming down too late for Johnson to be released the same day.

Superior Court Justice Kirk Munroe sentenced Johnson last week to three years in prison for having sex with a 16-year-old girl who was too drunk to consent. Johnson was taken from the courthouse to Windsor’s South West Detention Centre to begin serving his sentence. Eventually, he was to be transferred to a federal penitentiary.

Johnson filed his appeal two days into his sentence. He is being represented by the Toronto firm Lockyer Campbell Posner, which specializes in appellate law and whose partner, James Lockyer is a founding director of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted. Lockyer was involved in overturning the murder convictions of Guy Paul Morin and Steven Truscott, among others.

Bail documents that spell out the conditions of release are usually public and available at the courthouse where they are prepared. Johnson’s documents were not available by the time the courthouse closed Tuesday.

Johnson, 22, was convicted of raping a 16-year-old girl in the women’s washroom of Mynt, a now-defunct downtown nightclub, in March 2013.

Munroe said he was satisfied that Johnson, who was 18 at the time, forced the girl to perform oral sex before having vaginal intercourse with her. The girl was found in the washroom stall barely conscious, vomiting and bleeding.

Johnson, who testified in his own defence at trial, said the girl initiated the oral sex. He denied having intercourse with her.

While Johnson has not played an NHL game, the New Jersey Devils had signed him to an entry contract. Since his conviction in September, the Devils severed ties with him.

According to the Ontario Court of Appeal website, a criminal appeal normally takes up to three months to be heard.

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The young woman Ben Johnson was convicted of raping in a washroom stall is disappointed and scared at the prospect of his release, her mother told the Windsor Star today.

The fallen hockey star became eligible for bail pending appeal Tuesday after an appellate judge ruled he could be released until his case is heard. Johnson remained behind bars Wednesday while he sought to satisfy the conditions of his release imposed by the judge of the Ontario Court of Appeal. Johnson’s bail documents have yet to be made public, so the terms could not be confirmed.

Johnson, 22, was sentenced last week to three years in prison for having sex with a then 16-year-old girl who the judge ruled was too drunk to consent. Superior Court Justice Kirk Munroe convicted Johnson of sexual assault, finding as a fact that the then Windsor Spitfire forward forced the girl to perform oral sex before having intercourse with her in March 2013 at Mynt, a downtown nightclub now closed.

In his ruling, Munroe said he believed witnesses who testified to finding the girl “nearly comatose” in the washroom stall, vomiting and bleeding from her torn genitals.

The mother said the family has been in contact with the Crown lawyer handling Johnson’s appeal and it is her understanding that Johnson is to be released into the custody of Fran Vernes, the woman who billeted him while he played for the Windsor Spitfires.

That means Johnson would be living in Windsor while his lawyer prepares his appeal and a hearing is held, likely early in the new year.

“Sadly, my daughter fears for her safety, and does not feel comfortable following her daily regime in her own community,” the girl’s mother told the Star.

The woman cannot be named according to a court order that bans publication of information that might identify her daughter.

“At the end of the day, she is fearful and disappointed,” the mother said. “The least we expected from our justice system was protection for our daughter.”

Johnson was released on bail soon after his arrest just hours after the 2013 incident. He remained on bail throughout his trial right until he was taken into custody last week to begin serving his sentence.

After convicting Johnson, however, Munroe changed the conditions of Johnson’s release to mitigate his flight risk.

Munroe increased the amount of money Johnson had to deposit with the court to $27,500 from the initial amount of $15,000. Also, Vernes and Spitfire team therapist Joe Garland were made to double the amount they pledged to pay to the court if Johnson absconded. Originally promising $7,500 each, Munroe set the amount at $15,000 each.

It’s unknown how much money Johnson, his family and friends have to promise or deposit now.

“The entire family is disappointed and frustrated, but we refuse to lose hope. We are confident that the convicted received a fair trial and sentence,” the mother said. “ Our disappointment lies in the fact that we are now dealing with safety concerns for our daughter.”

Johnson, who was drafted by the New Jersey Devils in 2012 but lost his contract without ever playing a game in the NHL, filed his appeal Oct. 27, two days after his sentencing hearing.

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A Leamington man accused of hitting a cyclist while driving drunk in 2013 intends to plead guilty, Superior Court heard Tuesday.

Matthew Quiring, 27, sat crying in court while his lawyer confirmed that a trial will not be necessary in the case.

“It’s something that has kept him awake for the past four years,” defence lawyer Patrick Ducharme told Superior Court Justice Pamela Hebner.

Quiring, 27, is charged with impaired driving causing bodily harm, causing bodily harm while driving with more than the legal limit of alcohol in your bloodstream and leaving the scene of an accident where someone was injured. The charges stem from a May 2013 crash on Road 4 in Leamington that left Alejandro Riveira Marquez, 48, a quadriplegic. Marquez, a migrant worker, later died.

Quiring was set to go to trial in February 2017. Tuesday was one of three days set aside this week for pre-trial hearings. The first was to deal with a constitutional challenge Quiring had launched. He was arguing that the charges against him should be dismissed because of the length of time it has taken for his case to come to trial.

Argument on that issue was to be heard Monday but neither Ducharme nor Quiring showed up in court. Ducharme blamed a scheduling error by his secretary for his absence. Quiring, unaware he was supposed to be in court, was in Waterloo, Ont., working for his family’s greenhouse business, Ducharme said.

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A Leamington greenhouse heir was sentenced to nine months in jail Wednesday for driving into a cyclist in 2013 and then fleeing the scene.

Matthew Quiring, 27, struck Alejandro Riveira Marquez on May 5, 2013 as the migrant worker rode a bicycle eastbound on Mersea Road 4. Quiring, also eastbound and driving a 2009 Chevrolet Avalanche, fled the scene without stopping to check on his victim.

Quiring showed a “callous disregard for the life and safety of another human being,” Superior Court Justice Renee Pomerance said in sentencing Quiring after he pleaded guilty. He put “rank self-interest above the well-being of another.”

In addition to the jail sentence, Quiring is prohibited from driving for two years and he must allow police to take a blood sample for the DNA databank used to solve crimes.

After hitting Marquez on his bike, Quiring drove to the home he shared with his brother-in-law, John Ketler. Quiring called his father, Peter, who urged his son to turn himself in.

“I hit somebody on a bike,” Quiring told the person who answered the non-emergency line for police.

A passing motorist had already called 911 after spotting Marquez lying in the road. Marquez lay alone in pain for 25 minutes until help arrived.

Matthew Quiring is pictured in this undated handout photo.

Quiring returned to the scene where he was arrested.

As well as the offence he pleaded guilty to Wednesday, he was charged with impaired driving causing bodily harm and causing bodily harm while driving with more than the legal limit of alcohol in his bloodstream. Those charges where withdrawn as part of the plea bargain.

Assistant Crown attorney Walter Costa said leaving a severely injured man lying at the side of a road is a crime that must be denounced. Society expects its members “to extend to our brothers and sisters some compassion,” Costa said.

Costa asked Pomerance to suspend Quiring’s driver’s licence for up to five years.

But defence lawyer Patrick Ducharme asked for the one-year minimum.

Quiring is the sales and marketing manager for Nature Fresh Farms, a Leamington greenhouse operation founded by his father. Ducharme says Quiring travels the province, generating $50 million in sales, and needs to drive for work.

The argument fell flat with the judge who said Quiring or the company could simply hire a driver for him.

But Pomerance did give Quiring credit for pleading guilty and for showing genuine remorse.

When asked if he had anything to say before sentencing, Quiring apologized for the grief he caused his victim’s family. “This is not representative of the person I am,” he said. The courtroom packed full of supporters would attest to that, he continued.

Quiring kept his composure during the court appearance. A day earlier, he wept while waiting alone in the courthouse as his lawyer hammered out the plea bargain with the Crown and judge behind closed doors.

“This case has taken a huge toll on Mr. Quiring,” Ducharme told the court.

“He never denied he was the person responsible.”

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An Ontario court judge will decide next month whether a man charged with murdering his estranged wife a decade ago will be made to stand trial.

Scott Douglas Quick, 50, is charged in the February 2006 hit-and-run death of Nancy Galbraith-Quick. The 40-year-old mom was run down by a stolen van near St. William school in Emeryville where she worked as an educational assistant. She was thrown into a tree and died five days later without ever regaining consciousness.

Police charged Quick nearly nine years after the incident.

A preliminary hearing in the case began in January. Thursday, Ontario court Justice Lloyd Dean ruled on the admissibility of the evidence he heard.

A court order, standard in preliminary hearings, prohibits publication of any of the evidence or what the lawyers and judge say about it.

The purpose of a preliminary hearing is to determine if there is any evidence suggesting guilt. The burden of proof is much lower than at trial.

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A man who killed a pregnant Windsor woman, then set fire to her house with her mutilated body inside, pleaded guilty Monday to second-degree murder.

Matthew Brush, 28, appeared in Superior Court, telling Justice Bruce Thomas he understood the crime to which he was pleading guilty is punishable by a life sentence. Second-degree murder carries a penalty of 25 years in prison, with parole eligibility to be set by the sentencing judge, Thomas explained to Brush. The minimum sentence a person convicted of second-degree murder must serve behind bars is 10 years.

Cassandra Kaake’s body was discovered Dec. 11, 2014, after firefighters extinguished a blaze at 1564 Benjamin Ave.

Police say the fire did not kill her, but that she died from blood loss caused by severe trauma.

Brush acknowledged through his guilty plea that he murdered the pregnant woman on Dec. 10. No motive was revealed in court Monday.

Kaake, 31, was seven months pregnant at the time of her death. She intended to name her baby Molly.

The baby’s father became the face of a lobbying campaign calling for criminal charges related to unborn children.

Jeff Durham and Nancy Kaake talk outside of Superior Court following a guilty plea in the Cassandra Kaake murder case in Windsor on Nov. 14, 2016.

Outside the courthouse Monday, Jeff Durham said he is relieved there won’t be a trial in the case, but said any sentence Brush receives will bring little comfort.

“It’s upsetting … profoundly upsetting,” Durham said, his eyes welling up. “It continues to be pretty hard.”

Durham said he continues to be disappointed that there in no legislation making it a crime to kill an unborn child.

“He pleaded guilty to murdering Cassie but our daughter is not represented,” Durham said. “I feel like the charges have betrayed the reality from the beginning.”

Brush, who has been in police custody since his arrest nearly two months after Kaake’s murder, appeared in court Monday wearing a dark suit, his hair pulled back in a ponytail. In a clear, loud voice, he read from a sheet of paper handed to him by defence lawyer Ken Golish, saying he pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, but guilty to the lesser, included offence of second-degree murder. Second-degree murder implies Brush did not plan the killing.

Brush also pleaded guilty to arson.

Brush was committed to stand trial earlier this year following a preliminary hearing in Ontario court. His guilty plea came soon after the case was transferred to Superior Court for trial.

Thomas set aside a week of court time for Brush’s sentencing hearing in January. At that time, details of the crime will be revealed.

While details emerged at the preliminary hearing, a publication ban prohibits reporting of the facts of the case until they are acknowledged by the accused person.

Brush pleaded guilty without yet admitting to those facts.

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Essex OPP Const. Jamie Porto was driving 178 km/h through the small community of St. Joachim when he smashed into another car, injuring the driver and taking out a gas pump and the front porch of a house, his dangerous driving trial heard Tuesday.

Porto was one of several officers from across the county who were responding to a car crash on Rochester Town Line in Lakeshore on Oct. 24, 2014. At first, officers thought it was serious accident — the T-intersection of Auction Side Road where it occurred was notorious for fatal crashes. As it turned out, the extent of the injuries was a reaction to the chemicals from a deployed airbag on the face of one of the drivers, the trial heard.

Porto, 34, is charged with dangerous driving causing bodily harm in relation to the crash at County Road 42 and County Road 31, better known as French Line, in St. Joachim. The speed limit where the crash occurred was 50 km/h. Porto was charged by the province’s Special Investigations Unit, a police watchdog agency that investigates incidents in which police officers kill or seriously injure someone.

Lisa Holmes testified on Nov. 15, 2016 in the trial of OPP officer Jamie Porto. She is shown outside Superior Court in Windsor.

Ryan Coombes was a young driver, with just his G2 licence, taking his parents’ silver Volkswagen Passat for a drive that day. He was on his way home to St. Joachim from returning a movie at a rental store in Belle River when he was struck from behind by an oncoming police cruiser.

Coombes testified he was turning left onto County Road 31 from County Road 42. The next thing he remembered, people were waking him up and asking if he was OK.

“I don’t remember much,” he said.

Coombes suffered a concussion and two broken ribs.

The trial heard Porto was driving eastbound on County Road 42 in the westbound lane and hit the car Coombes was driving on driver’s side near the back of the car. The force of the crash spun the Volkswagen through the intersection into a gas station and garage on the corner.

Darlene Trepanier, who owns the business with her husband, testified she was outside when she saw Coombes’s car turning at the intersection with the cruiser racing up behind.

“It didn’t look like a good combination,” she said, explaining she anticipated the crash about to happen.

She ran to the garage bay door and turned off the power to the gas pumps inside. Fearing someone might hit a pump and cause an explosion, she warned her family and staff working inside.

Lisa Holmes was one of Trepanier’s customers that day. She was having new tires put on her minivan and was taking her two young daughters for a walk while the work was being done.

She was buckling her baby into the stroller when she heard screeching tires. She looked up to see a car spinning toward them. “There was a shower of glass,” Holmes said. She covered her face with her arm and shielded her children with her body. The car came within five feet of where they were standing.

Workers were installing a new gas line near the intersection at the time of the crash. Backhoe operator Frank Apollonio said the cruiser “flew by” with lights and sirens going.

Defence lawyer Dan Scott asked Apollonio if he ever saw the silver VW get out of the way. Apollonio said he didn’t think that would have been possible.

“He was going so fast I don’t think the kid would have seen him.”

Porto was driving what police call a “stealth cruiser” with “subdued markings.” Court heard it’s normally used to catch speeders.

A prosecutor from the Crown attorney’s office in Toronto is handling the case. The trial is scheduled for four days before Superior Court Justice Bruce Thomas.

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A Toronto man was sentenced this week to three years in prison for travelling into Essex County with drugs in his pocket and a loaded handgun in the trunk of his car.

Gavin Brown, 32, was stopped by the OPP on May 30, 2015 driving suspiciously on Hwy. 7 into Leamington. He was driving 70 kilometres per hour in an 80 km/hr zone and crossing the median line.

The officer who stopped his grey BMW could smell recently smoked marijuana in the car.

The officer searched Brown and found three 100-milligram fentanyl patches in his pocket. Inside the car, the officer found the remnants of marijuana cigarettes. In the trunk, the officer found a loaded Sig Sauer pistol in a blue tool bag.

Court heard Brown came to Canada from Jamaica with hs mother when he was six and is a Canadian citizen. He works for a company delivering and setting up office furniture and runs his own business cleaning offices.

Brown’s criminal record includes convictions for assault, fraud, mischief, threats and breaching court orders.

Yet, he volunteers at the Jane/Finch Community and Family Centre. The manager of the youth program there wrote that Brown is a well-respected mentor.

Superior Court Justice Bruce Thomas said the letter perplexed him. “That is in stark contrast to the young man who is in this vehicle,” Thomas said, repeating the details of the drugs and handgun that led to Brown’s arrest.

“I don’t know how to reconcile these two Gavin Browns.”

Brown spent 48 days in jail until he was released on bail. With enhanced credit for that time served, his three-year sentence is reduced by 72 days.

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To hear his own daughter tell it, Damian Hawley was a despicable human being even before killing his 85-year-old mother by burying a hammer in her skull.

Outside the courthouse where her father pleaded guilty Wednesday to second-degree murder, Kaitlyn Hawley said she only ever heard from her father when he wanted money.

“I would tell him to get lost,” the 25-year-old mom said.

Her grandmother, Gertrude, however, was a softer touch.

“She always saw the good in people, especially my dad.”

Damian Hawley, 56, killed his mother on June 26, 2014. Court heard that Gertrude had bought her son a car only a month earlier, but that he was back, demanding more.

A home in the 900 block of Reedmere Road in Windsor, Ont., is surrounded by police tape on June 26, 2014 as police investigate the crime scene.

Hawley’s then 25-year-old son, Michael, who lived with his grandmother in her Reedmere Road home, awoke to the sound of voices. He then heard his grandmother screaming, “Stop it! Stop it!”

He ran downstairs to find his grandmother lying on the floor with a hammer sticking out of her head. She was trying to call out for help, but couldn’t make a sound.

Neighbours had also heard what they described as “blood-curdling screams” and called police.

But when Michael tried to call 911, Hawley threatened him with a saw. “If you screw up, I’ll cut your head off.”

Hawley reached down and pried the claw of the hammer out of his mother’s head. He then asked Michael where his grandmother kept her purse. Hawley took his mother’s bank card and pocketed her loose change.

Gertrude Hawley survived 10 days before succumbing to the injuries her son inflicted on her.

Addressing the court Wednesday, Hawley said he had no explanation for his actions.

“I loved my mother very much,” he said.

“I had no reason to do it to her.”

Hawley said he pleaded guilty to spare his son from having to testify.

In a victim-impact statement read into court by assistant Crown attorney Craig Houle Wednesday, Michael Hawley said he is haunted by his grandmother’s brutal death.

He suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, nightmares waking him from sleep.

Neither of Hawley’s children want anything to do with him, and asked the judge to impose a non-communication order.

Superior Court Justice Bruce Thomas granted that request and handed Hawley a mandatory life sentence, setting his parole eligibility at 12 years.

With the sentence, Hawley will be on parole for life, but will have to spend at least 12 years behind bars before applying for release.

“This is a particularly brutal crime,” Thomas said. While defence lawyer Frank Miller suggested Hawley suffered an epileptic seizure earlier that day that may have caused him to act out of character, Thomas said it was clear to him that the motive for the murder was money.

Court heard Gertrude Hawley had given her son so much money, that she had recently written him out of her will. While Miller suggested Hawley wouldn’t have known about the will, his daughter said he did know and it enraged him.

Hawley has a criminal record dating back to 1977, when he was convicted for break and enter and arson. He later racked up convictions for thefts, damaging property and breaching court orders.

Then came a series of convictions in the 1990s for impaired driving.

Hawley, who was arrested the night of the murder and has been jailed since, has already served two years of his 12-year sentence. He will be 66 when he can first apply for parole.

Hawley told the court he will regret what he did for the rest of his life.

“Part of my sentence is knowing I took my mother’s life,” Hawley said. “That’s hard on somebody …”

The judge injected. “As it should be, Mr. Hawley. As it should be.”

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Kaitlyn Hawley, estranged daughter of Damian Hawley, speaks with the media outside Superior Court in Windsor, Ont., on Nov. 16, 2016.

Defence lawyer Frank Miller speaks with the media outside Superior Court in Windsor, Ont., on Nov. 16, 2016.

Assistant Crown attorney Craig Houle speaks with the media outside Superior Court in Windsor, Ont., on Nov. 16, 2016.

Mississauga trucker Zeev Bilenkis knew full well he wasn’t carrying frozen apple slices from New York when he pulled into Canada Customs on Aug. 13, 2013 and told that lie.

The processed tobacco found on inspection was a mystery even to him. But, then again, he’d been paid to bring a shipment into Canada and not ask questions.

Bilenkis pleaded guilty Thursday to making a false statement to a customs officer. Noting Bilenkis’s health problems, Superior Court Justice Bruce Thomas spared the man a year behind bars and sentenced him instead to house arrest.

Court heard Bilenkis, now 47, was having money troubles when he agreed to bring an unknown shipment into Canada. He knew it couldn’t be a frozen product because the warehouse he had been to wasn’t refrigerated, federal prosecutor Ed Posliff told the court.

Defence lawyer Andrew Bradie said Bilenkis “made a conscious choice to be wilfully blind.”

While free awaiting trial, Bilenkis visited Ukraine where he got into a serious motorcycle accident in September 2015. Bilenkis spent three months in a hospital there before returning to Canada where he spent several more weeks in and out of hospitals in Toronto.

Bilenkis has had nine surgeries and walks with a cane. He can no longer work and collects disability.

Thomas ordered Bilenkis to stay in Ontario and abide by a 10 p.m. curfew as a condition of his house arrest. Thomas warned Bilenkis he will serve the remainder of his sentence behind bars if he breaches those conditions.

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An OPP officer on trial this week for crashing his cruiser while driving 178 km/h in St. Joachim blamed the driver he hit and injured for causing the accident.

Const. Jamie Porto took the witness stand Thursday and insisted there was nothing unsafe about the way he was driving through the 50 km/h zone on Oct. 24, 2014. Porto said he was responding to what he believed was a serious crash on Rochester Town Line at a T-intersection known for fatalities.

“You are trained to get to the call as fast as you can in a safe manner,” Porto testified.

Porto, 34, is charged with dangerous driving causing bodily harm in relation to the crash. He was driving eastbound on County Road 42 in the westbound lane when he struck a Volkswagen Passat turning south on County Road 31, also known as French Line.

The Volkswagen spun through the intersection taking out a pump at a gas station on the corner. Porto’s unmarked cruiser struck a house, demolishing the front porch.

Porto testified he had slowed as he approached the village. Court has heard the cruiser’s data recorder showed Porto was travelling 178 km/h four seconds before the crash. Prosecutor Peter Scrutton pointed out that by Porto’s own admission, he would have been driving even faster before that.

Porto said he had no idea how fast he was driving until the data from his cruiser was retrieved. He said at high speeds you can never take your eyes off the road, even to check the speedometer.

Porto testified he saw the Passat ahead of him. The vehicle was stopped, Porto said. He thought the driver had stopped rather than pulling to the right, to allow the cruiser to pass.

Porto said he didn’t see the Passat’s turn signal flashing.

“Is that because you were driving way too fast,” Scrutton asked.

Porto was unequivocal in his response. “No.”

Porto said the driver of the Passat committed two infractions. He did not pull over to let Porto pass and he turned left when it was not safe to do so.

“I cannot control that people do not obey the law, sir,” Porto responded to Scrutton’s suggestion Porto was approaching too quickly for the other driver to react.

According to the data recorder, Porto did not brake or turn the wheel to avoid the crash until half a second before impact. In that split second, the cruiser slowed to 156 km/h, the speed upon impact.

Court heard that, while the OPP has policies regarding high-speed pursuits, there is no policy about speeds officers can drive to respond to calls.

“You are not entitled to endanger the public because you are responding to a priority call,” Scrutton suggested. Porto agreed.

Porto testified he broke his left hand in the crash. The other driver, 19 at the time, suffered a concussion and two broken ribs.

Porto was charged after the province’s Special Investigations Unit took over the case. The agency investigates incidents in which officers kill or injure members of the public.

Superior Court Justice Bruce Thomas will hear closing submissions from the Crown and defence lawyer Dan Scott Friday and intends to rule on the case next month.

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Colin Chrisjohn — who brutally beat and stabbed a man to death in Windsor last summer — should get a lighter sentence due to his Aboriginal heritage, says his defence lawyer.

“When you are bullied, you develop anger,” said Windsor lawyer Laura Joy in court on Monday.

According to Joy, her client experienced racism in his youth due to his heritage with the Oneida Nation of the Thames, and this — combined with a learning disability and alcohol issues — should be a consideration in his sentence.

Joy said her client is “not a bad person. He is actually a decent human being. He’s not a sociopath. He does feel remorse.”

Chrisjohn, 26, pleaded guilty in August to a charge of manslaughter for the killing of Amir Hayat Malik.

A 32-year-old Pakistani immigrant, Malik’s battered and bloody body was discovered in an alley behind Brant Street on the morning of June 4, 2015. His injuries included multiple stab wounds and a deeply cut throat.

The court heard that Chrisjohn and Malik were friends. Both were intoxicated at the time of the incident, and the altercation apparently started over a comment Malik made to Chrisjohn.

Assistant Crown attorney Kim Bertholet described the killing as “an extremely grave offence.”

“It wasn’t one stab. It wasn’t one punch or a push,” Bertholet told the court.

Bertholet noted that Chrisjohn left the victim to die in the alley: He did not call 911, and he made no efforts to save his friend’s life.

Instead, Chrisjohn fled the city after apparently disposing of evidence: No knife was found at the scene, and there was no blood evidence on Chrisjohn when he eventually surrendered himself to police four days later.

The Crown is seeking a prison sentence for Chrisjohn in the range of eight to 12 years. Bertholet is recommending a sentence of nine years.

Windsor police officers at the crime scene in the alley behind the 500 block of Brant Street on June 4, 2015.

Meanwhile, Chrisjohn’s defence is seeking a sentence in the range of four to seven years, with an emphasis on the lower end.

Joy noted that consideration of an Aboriginal offender’s heritage before sentencing — known as a Gladue report — is enshrined in Canadian law.

Section 718.2(e) of the Criminal Code states that there should be “particular attention to the circumstances of Aboriginal offenders” as a principle of sentencing.

“Colin has great love for his country and for his Aboriginal heritage,” Joy told the court.

“He wants you to know he will be a productive member of society.”

But Bertholet said Chrisjohn’s history of violence should be an aggravating factor in his sentence. At the time of Malik’s killing, Chrisjohn was already facing a charge of assault with a weapon for a separate incident. His record includes other charges of robbery and assault.

“Just because you’re sentencing an Aboriginal offender doesn’t mean there’s an automatic reduction in sentencing,” Bertholet told the court.

Humira Malik, the victim’s younger sister, gave an impact statement to the court on Monday.

She described receiving the phone call that informed her of her older brother’s death. “My body was shaking. I couldn’t believe my ears. I fell to the ground screaming.”

“He was taken from us by force. He faced extreme pain. Extreme wounds were given to him. Even after death, wounds were given to him,” Humira said.

Humira said she still has nightmares of her brother begging and screaming for his life. “This thought will never leave my mind.”

Humira said Amir has three daughters in Pakistan. His body was taken there for burial.

Justice Ronald Marion has scheduled to sentence Chrisjohn on Jan. 26, 2017.

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A man who set fire to a Balfour Boulevard home last year knowing a woman and her two young children were inside is facing a life sentence.

Kenneth James Kormendy was convicted Monday of three counts of attempted murder and five arson-related charges. After Superior Court Justice Christopher Bondy delivered the ruling, assistant Crown attorney Walter Costa put Kormendy on notice he is seeking the maximum penalty for the crime. Normally, a person convicted of attempted murder can apply for parole after seven years. Costa wants Kormendy to serve 10 years before he can apply for release and be on parole for the rest of his life.

On the night of Oct. 24, 2015, Kormendy, 44, grabbed a can of gasoline and poured it over the bed where Sheri Rueda lay with her sleeping daughter. Rueda’s toddler, Felicia, 1, was asleep in her crib in another room.

Sheri Rueda leaves the Superior Court of Justice during a break from the trial of Kenneth Kormendy on Oct. 17, 2016.

Kormendy then poured the gas in the hallway and on the bedroom door Rueda was, by this point, holding shut. He then lit the fire with the pink Bic lighter found in his pocket upon his arrest.

Isabel Rueda, then 7, suffered deep, lasting burns to 15 per cent of her body. Her doctor testified at trial the little girl will never have full use of her hands or feet and will require repeated surgeries to loosen scar tissue as she grows. The burns to her face will be permanent.

Kormendy rescued Felicia from her crib, holding her in his arms in the front yard outside the burning home. Bondy said Monday he believes Kormendy did this to “put distance” between himself and the arson.

Marty Doll

At trial, Kormendy tried to pin the blaze on Rueda, saying the woman was so distraught over losing him that she wanted to kill herself and her children.

“I did not find Mr. Kormendy to be a credible witness,” Bondy said.

Kormendy and Rueda had been in a stormy, albeit short, romantic relationship. The two had met through an online dating site and within weeks of meeting for the first time, Kormendy moved into the home Rueda shared with her three daughters. The eldest daughter, Sarah, 10, was not home at the time of the blaze.

Rueda testified that Kormendy was “clingy” and “controlling.”

He wanted her to spend every moment with him and resented her visiting family or talking on the phone with friends.

Bondy pointed to more than 200 text messages entered as evidence at trial. They showed Kormendy would send Rueda a string of 10 texts before she could respond once.

Family friend Marty Doll, speaking to reporters outside the courthouse after the judgment, said he thought Kormendy was odd from the first time he met him.

“He was always a little different,” Doll said.

“But it’s just brutal to do this to a little girl,” he said, speaking of Isabel’s permanent injuries.

Doll said Rueda was pleased with the judgment, as was he, his wife and the rest of Rueda’s family. He said he was glad the prosecutor was seeking a life sentence, but said parole at any point is too lenient.

“It should be life with no parole for that, for trying to kill two little girls.”

Kormendy’s mother seemed in shock after the ruling. “He’s not guilty. I can’t believe it,” she said.

“He wouldn’t do a thing like that. He’s been a good kid all along.”

Defence lawyer Evan Weber said he wasn’t surprised by the ruling or the prosecution’s push for a life sentence. He asked the judge to order a background report on Kormendy.

The judge set aside a full day in March to hear arguments on sentencing.

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The engineer of the train that struck a minivan in June 2012, killing two young children, testified Monday that Andrew Williams looked right at him, shrugged his shoulders, then stepped on the gas in the moments before the fatal crash.

Racing trains is common, James Hamilton testified at Williams’s trial. “I don’t know what he was thinking,” Hamilton said.

Williams, 31, is charged with seven crimes in relation to the June 10, 2012 crash on Strong Road in Lakeshore. He was driving his 2000 blue Dodge Caravan southbound on the gravel road about 9:35 a.m. when he was struck by a westbound train at a crossing north of County Road 42.

In the van with Williams were his four young children. Wynter, 6, and Brooklyn, 3, died from injuries they suffered in the crash. Dryden, then 4, broke his leg and has permanent brain damage, court heard. Jasmyn, then 1½, suffered minor injuries and has made a full recovery.

Williams is charged with two counts of criminal negligence causing death, one count of criminal negligence causing bodily harm and four counts of dangerous operation of a motor vehicle.

The freight train Hamilton was driving was outfitted with a camera on the front. Footage captured from the camera was played in court Monday. It showed that, beyond the part of the train visible in the frame, it was a bright, clear day. Over the sound of the wheels grinding on the track is the train’s horn.

A blue minivan approaches the track from the right side of the screen. The minivan comes closer and closer before disappearing below the frame.

That’s the moment of impact, Hamilton explained.

Hamilton said he could see the minivan travelling down the gravel road at a high rate of speed. He said the van dipped a bit in the front and fishtailed as it approached the crossing, suggesting the driver had hit the brakes.

“I made eye contact with the driver,” Hamilton said. The engineer said he then saw Williams shrug his shoulders and speed up again.

When the van initially slowed, “I was hoping he was going to stop,” Hamilton testified. Since he sat too high up in the locomotive to see the actual impact, he thought the van might make it across the track in time. Instead, Hamilton said, he “heard a crunch.”

Williams, who court heard also sustained brain damage in the crash and suffers seizures when he becomes emotional, was excused from the courtroom while the video was played. Superior Court Justice Kirk Munroe heard from Williams and his mother, Crystal Bellward, about how Williams suffered a seizure in the courthouse last year after watching the video at his preliminary hearing.

Having an accused person leave the room is highly unusual, Munroe said, citing case law that says accused persons have the right to be present during the entirety of their trials.

Hamilton said he recalls passing the whistle post approaching Strong Road. He sounded the whistle — two long blasts, one short one, then another long.

Seeing the minivan approaching the crossing, Hamilton held the final long blast because it appeared the van “was not playing per the rules.”

Defence lawyer Laura Joy grilled Hamilton, suggesting if he had put on the brakes, the crash would not have happened.

“I have no idea. I can’t answer that,” Hamilton responded.

CP has its own police force which interviewed Hamilton and gathered the video footage and data recording from the locomotive, court heard. Joy said, since CP is named in a civil suit launched by the Williams family, it is not “a neutral party” in the case.

The OPP investigated the crash and laid charges against Williams a year after the crash.

Joy, who tried to prevent the video from being entered as evidence at trial, questioning its authenticity, said she will play it again Tuesday as part of her continuing cross-examination of Hamilton.

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Boom Boom Room bouncer Devonte Pierce testified Tuesday his bosses at the downtown nightclub visited him in the hospital in 2014 and bribed him to lie to police after he was shot on the job.

“At the time it was for my injuries, that’s what I thought.” But, Pierce said, it soon became clear that Remo and Renaldo Agostino gave him $350 to tell police he was shot outside the Ouellette Avenue club, not inside.

Pierce testified in the trial of two Brampton men charged in the Oct. 5, 2014 shooting.

Kevin Mantley Nyadu, 22, is charged with attempted murder and five firearm offences. Shadrack Kwame Amankwa, 26, is charged with being an accessory to attempted murder, as well as five firearm offences.

At the time of the incident, Amankwa was bound by a court order prohibiting him from possessing any firearm or ammunition. He is additionally charged with two breaches of a court order.

Pierce, 20 at the time, was shot in the back, the 9mm bullet narrowly missing his spine. He suffered damage to a kidney.

Pierce testified he was one of several bouncers inside the crowded bar that night. They communicated in the loud nightclub by shining lights into each other’s faces, then at trouble spots in the crowd.

It was near closing time when a fellow employee named Romeo got Pierce’s attention by flashing a light at him from across the bar. The light then went to a “rowdy” crowd that had been friendly, but a “little hyper.”

Pierce made his way to the group. “I asked them to leave and they weren’t having it,” Pierce testified. A physical confrontation ensued and Pierce grabbed a man in a red shirt and pushed him out the door. As he turned to throw a second man out of the bar, he felt a pain in his back. “That’s when I felt the gunshot.”

Pierce says he has no idea who shot him and can’t say whether it was even a member of the group he was throwing out.

Pierce testified he remembered thinking they must have been from out of town because he didn’t recognize them.

They’d been cordial to him all night, buying him drinks, he said. Pierce said he had celebrated with fellow members of the AKO Fratmen football team before coming to work, so he handed the drinks to a friend in the bar.

Pierce said the Agostino brothers were among his first visitors after he underwent surgery. Pierce testified they “pressured” him to tell police he wasn’t inside the bar when he was shot. They gave him $350 in addition to his regular paycheque “to lie to the police, more or less,” he said.

Pierce said when Windsor police officers interviewed him in the hospital, he told them what the Agostinos wanted him to say. Later, when they asked him to give a statement under oath, he changed his story. “I told the truth.”

Officers arrested Nyadu and Amankwa near Victoria Avenue and Park Street minutes after the shooting. In shrubs nearby was a 9mm handgun.

The gun had male DNA on it. It did not match either of the men.

There was no gunshot residue on Amankwa’s hands, but forensic testing showed trace amounts — three particles — on Nyadu.

Robert Gerard, a chemist at the Centre for Forensic Sciences in Toronto, testified it’s possible there could have been gunshot residue on the police officer who handcuffed Nyadu or in the back seat of the cruiser where the officer placed him. Particles could have transferred onto Nyadu, Gerard said under cross-examination.

Firing a gun releases particles into the air, he explained. “If someone has gunshot residue on their hands, it doesn’t prove they were a shooter. It just means they could have been.”

The trial continues before Superior Court Justice J. Paul Howard on Wednesday.

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The driver’s window on Andrew Williams’s minivan was open at the time it was struck by a train on June 10, 2012, his criminal negligence causing death trial heard Thursday.

Const. Brad Williamson, a technical collision investigator with the OPP, testified the window was shattered but intact inside the door, the pieces of glass held together by a window film. This suggests Williams should have heard the train horn blasting as it came down the track toward him. But, the officer conceded under vigorous cross-examination, he never had the door taken apart to confirm his conclusion.

“It is my opinion that the window was down,” Williamson said. “I can’t say it was fully down.”

Williams, 31, is on trial, charged with two counts of criminal negligence causing death, one count of criminal negligence causing bodily harm and four counts of dangerous operation of a motor vehicle. Two of his children died and another was permanently injured in the crash that occurred as he drove his 2000 Dodge Caravan south on Strong Road in Lakeshore and was struck by a westbound CP freight train.

His daughters, Wynter, 6, and Brooklyn, 3, died from injuries they suffered in the crash. Son Dryden, then 4, suffered a broken leg and has permanent brain damage, court has heard. Jasmyn, then 1½, suffered only minor injuries.

Witnesses have testified Williams was either trying to beat the train or pulled into its path on purpose.

Defence lawyer Laura Joy picked apart the OPP investigation, pointing out errors in Williamson’s report.

At one point in Williamson’s testimony, he said the Williams minivan was grey. It was in fact dark blue.

The judge, too, has expressed reservations about Williamson’s ability to give credible testimony. Superior Court Justice Kirk Munroe said Williamson is qualified to give “expert” testimony, that is, he can not only say what he saw, but give his interpretation of that evidence and offer his opinion. But, the judge added, Williamson tends to be evasive when answering questions, suggesting he is more of an “advocate” for the OPP — who charged Williams — than an impartial expert.

Joy grilled Williamson on his calculations of the stopping distance for the minivan using various speeds as estimates. In his initial calculations, Williamson did not account for the minivan’s anti-lock braking system. In his testimony, Williamson conceded he did not consider the weight of the minivan, the tire pressure or the tread depth.

Williamson said there were three signs on Strong Road warning drivers a rail crossing was ahead. The first was 210 metres from the track, he said. The crossing was level with the gravel road and had no flashing lights, gates or bells.

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A drunk driver who trashed her Mercedes while driving through mailboxes, a fence and a gazebo in LaSalle has been fined and placed on probation for a year.

Daniela Anghel, who turns 47 this month, pleaded guilty this week to driving with more than the legal limit of alcohol in her bloodstream. In exchange for her guilty plea, the Crown withdrew charges of impaired driving and assault for spitting on the police officer who arrested her.

LaSalle police responded to calls on July 30 about 10 p.m. about a black Mercedes being driven erratically on Front Road. In the short time it took to find the vehicle, it had driven through a gazebo in one yard, crossed Gary Street where it hit three Canada Post mailboxes, then took out a fence and was in the backyard of another residence.

Anghel, who was alone in the vehicle, sustained no injuries.

She was fined a total of $2,210 in Ontario court Thursday — $510 of which goes into a provincial fund to provide services to victims of crime. Anghel must also pay $1,000 to make restitution for the damage she caused.

Anghel was also handed a one-year driving prohibition and placed on probation for one year.

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Why her?

Through tears, the father of a rape victim repeated that question of his daughter’s attacker during a hearing in a Windsor courtroom Monday.

“Why? Why did you choose my daughter?”

It was Sept. 6, 2014 during Welcome Week at the University of Windsor. There was a floor party in the residence where the girl lived. She was 17 and had been on campus for all of 10 days.

Her dad told the court Monday that he knows what it is to be a teenager, to taste the freedom that comes with living away from home for the first time.

“Like young people… she drank. She drank too much.”

Francis Yaw Tweneboah-Koduah was also in his first year at Windsor. He was an international student from Ghana. At 18, he had been in the country for less than a month.

The father says Tweneboah-Koduah “spotted his prey” at the floor party. After some conversation, Tweneboah-Koduah picked the girl up in his arms and carried her to his dorm room. As she fell in and out of consciousness, he had intercourse with her. When he was done, he left her passed out on the blood-stained sheets and returned to the party.

Superior Court Justice J. Paul Howard convicted Tweneboah-Koduah of sexual assault after a trial earlier this year. While Tweneboah-Koduah testified the girl was a willing participant in the sexual activity, Howard found she was too drunk to consent.

Witnesses testified to the girl’s inebriation and court saw the incoherent text messages she sent friends from the party.

At Tweneboah-Koduah’s sentencing hearing Monday, assistant Crown attorney Jennifer Holmes said she is seeking a penitentiary sentence of 30 months. Court heard the girl was a virgin and that Tweneboah-Koduah gave her herpes for which she will take antiviral medication forever.

Defence lawyer Patricia Brown argued for a lesser sentence of 12 to 18 months behind bars. She said the criminal conviction alone will bring collateral punishment for Tweneboah-Koduah, who’s now at York University studying actuarial science. “It places him in a difficult situation with regards to his immigration status.”

Tipping her hand that Tweneboah-Koduah intends to appeal his conviction, Brown said, “My client maintains his innocence.”

Holmes drew parallels between this case and that of NHL hopeful Ben Johnson convicted in September of having sex with an intoxicated girl in a washroom stall of a downtown nightclub in 2013. Johnson, who has filed an appeal and is again free on bail, was sentenced to three years in prison.

Court heard that Tweneboah-Koduah’s victim finished out her first year in Windsor. She now attends a new school where she is on the dean’s list.

A court order prohibits publication of any information that would identify her.

The judge has reserved his decision on sentencing until Jan. 31.

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The engineer of the train that collided with a minivan carrying a father and his four young children was slow on the whistle and did not disengage the cruise control to slow the train before the fatal 2012 crash, according to data collected by the locomotive’s black box.

Kim Wauchs, CP Rail’s recently retired manager of operating practices, testified he analyzed the data from the train that struck Andrew Williams’s minivan at the crossing on Lakeshore’s Strong Road. Despite finding that the engineer did not hit the emergency brake until after the collision or immediately blast his horn as required at the whistle post 402 metres before the crossing, Wauchs agreed with CP’s conclusion that the engineer did nothing wrong.

Wauchs spent three days on the witness stand at Williams’s criminal trial in Superior Court in Windsor. He was responsible for writing CP’s “rules” that govern the conduct of the railway company’s employees.

Williams, 31, is charged with two counts of criminal negligence causing death, one count of criminal negligence causing bodily harm and four counts of dangerous operation of a motor vehicle in relation to the June 10, 2012 crash. His daughters, Wynter, 6, and Brooklyn, 3, died from injuries they suffered in the crash. Son Dryden, then 4, suffered a broken leg and has permanent brain damage, court has heard. Jasmyn, then 1½, suffered only minor injuries.

In her cross-examination of Wauchs, defence lawyer Laura Joy tried to cast aspersions on the conduct of the engineer and the railway company as a whole. A CP manager downloaded video from the “lococam” – the camera mounted on the front of the locomotive offering a view of the track as the train travelled westbound toward Windsor that day. That same manager also downloaded the data from the event recorder, commonly referred to a black box. Wauchs analyzed copies of the data and video before turning over his findings first to the rail company’s police force then to the OPP.

The time stamps on the video and data recorder don’t match, Wauchs conceded and neither were accurate, Wauchs conceded.

The railway does not remove the hard drive from the black box to preserve the original data, but rather used a computer to download a copy, Wauchs said. The data and video would have been overwritten within days, Wauchs said.

“As long as they can extract the data on-site, there’s no requirement to remove it,” Wauchs said in response to questions by assistant Crown attorney Walter Costa.

Joy has raised the spectre of evidence tampering by CP. Williams’s estranged wife, mother of the children in the van, is suing the rail company among others in relation to the crash.

CP has rules on how to respond to investigations, Wauchs said. Employees are not to provide their driver’s licences to police and sign no statements.

Wauchs testified earlier he trained operators. Joy asked him if in one of those sessions, he referenced the William’s crash and said “CP was 100 per cent negligent.”

Wauchs denied the allegation. “I never said that.” In fact, he said, he has never used the crash for any training purpose.

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