A B.C. Supreme Court justice has ruled the Crown did not prove an offender had knowledge or control of a sawed-off rifle and stolen handgun found in a furnace room of a North Kamloops home.

Justice Keith Bracken acquitted Steven Bartkowski, 45, of four weapons-related charges related to the guns found inside a duffel bag.

But Bartkowski was convicted of possession of a prohibited weapon — a Taser-type device shaped like a set of brass knuckles found in the suite — and of possessing a weapon or firearm when he was under a lifetime ban.

“One can’t resist a strong suspicion the accused well knew what was in the bag and was storing it there to keep it secret    . . .” Bracken said in his ruling.

Nonetheless, he said the Crown did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt Bartkowski had knowledge and control of the contents of the duffel bag found in the furnace room.

No fingerprints were found on the guns or duffel bag.

Defence lawyer Don Campbell argued police had “investigative tunnel vision” when, finding no drugs, they attempted to link the firearms to Bartkowksi.

Bartkowski testified friends and acquaintances came and went in what police called a typical drug house, located on Chestnut Avenue.

The Crown acknowledged the case was based on circumstantial evidence. There was also potential access via an upstairs suite.

Acting on a tip regarding a mid-level drug operation, police raided the basement suite in March 2014. They found only trace amounts of drugs.

Bartkowski was given credit for seven months already served awaiting trial.

Crown prosecutor Adrienne Murphy argued for a sentence of an additional 11 to 17 months prison. Campbell recommended allowing Bartkowski to serve 90 more days in jail on weekends while he otherwise lives at a recovery house.

The 45-year-old reported he is clean from drug addiction he acquired when jailed in 1996 at a federal penitentiary.

Justice Keith Bracken was scheduled to give his decision on sentence Thursday afternoon.

Bartkowski was one of three men charged following the 2002 slaying of Noel Thibault, whose charred remains were found in a vehicle abandoned at a gravel pit just outside Victoria.

Originally convicted of first-degree murder, Bartkowski successfully appealed and was eventually handed a nine-year sentence for manslaughter.

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A 45-year-old man caught with a Taser-type weapon, gunpowder and shotgun shells in his home was sentenced Thursday to a further four months in jail.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Keith Bracken acquitted Steven Bartkowski, 45, of four weapons-related charges related to a sawed-off rifle and stolen revolver found inside a duffel bag.

But Bracken convicted Bartkowski of possession of a prohibited weapon (a Taser-type device shaped like a set of brass knuckles found in the suite) and of possessing a weapon or firearm (the gunpowder and shells) when he was prohibited from doing so under a lifetime ban.

Acting on a tip regarding a mid-level drug operation, police raided the Chestnut Avenue basement suite in March 2014. They found only trace amounts of drugs in the North Kamloops home.

Bracken ruled the Crown did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt Bartkowski had knowledge and control of the contents of the duffel bag found in the furnace room. No fingerprints were found on the guns or duffel bag.

The Taser-type weapon was not charged and no charging device was found in the home, what police described as a cluttered and chaotic drug house. No firearm matched the shotgun shells.

While Bartkowski had a troubled childhood and has only a Grade 3 education, Bracken called him “an intelligent and capable man.” He has worked as a heavy-equipment operator. He has a criminal record dating to 1983 that includes a 12-year sentence for manslaughter.

Defence lawyer Don Campbell said Bartkowski is drug-free for the first time since he acquired an opiate addiction when jailed in the late 1990s.

Bartkowski spend about seven-and-a-half months awaiting trial.

The Crown asked for a further 11 to 17 months in prison, while defence lawyer Don Campbell argued for 90 more days, to be served on weekends while Bartkowski otherwise lives at a recovery house.

“I suspect it’s possible the accused can change his past lifestyle if he has help and, most importantly, chooses to do so,” Bracken said.

The sentencing judge said the additional four-month prison sentence will give Bartkowski time to carefully map out his recovery and work plan once released from jail. He will also serve 18 months probation.

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An Alberta man was sentenced Friday to more than a year in jail after a reckless and impaired 200-kilometre highway trip ended when he struck a barrier on the Coquihalla Highway, shredding two of his tires.

William Guy Elliott, 51, pleaded guilty in provincial court to impaired driving and dangerous driving.

In the early evening of June 17, Crown prosecutor Laura Drake said, police received reports of a reckless driver on the Trans-Canada Highway between Salmon Arm and Chase. The driver was reported to be tailgating, swerving and attempting to pass on the shoulder.

Calls continued to 911 over a 90-minute period as Elliott made his way eastbound to Kamloops and continued south on the Coquihalla Highway past Merritt. Drake said six motorists called in reports on the black VW Jetta Elliott was driving.

He was finally arrested by RCMP when the car he was driving struck the centre barrier on the Coquihalla. Motorists stopped and noted he looked “intoxicated and was staggering,” Drake said.

Elliot also urinated inside his pants and an RCMP member who spoke to him could only make out the name “Robert” when she asked Elliott’s name.

Elliott blew levels of 1.8 and 1.9 — more than twice the legal blood-alcohol limit for driving and three times the limit for which an immediate suspension can be given.

He was under a driving ban at the time.

“The fact Mr. Elliott didn’t kill himself or someone else, or seriously injure them, is amazing,” judge Roy Dickey said.

Elliott has been in custody since he was arrested, giving him credit for about four months’ time served. Dickey sentenced him to another 14 months in prison, saying the circumstances were at the most serious end of the spectrum for impaired driving and dangerous driving.

Defence lawyer Don Campbell said Elliott became a crack-cocaine addict several years ago and his life spiralled downward. He split from his wife, who was convicted of fraud and arson amid the five-year marriage, and lost his young children to Alberta’s social-services agency.

Elliott works with horses and on movie sets in Alberta. He has worked on television series Fargo and Hell on Wheels, as well as on the set for the film The Revenant

Asked to speak to the court before his sentence, Elliott said, “I really want to see my kids,” before breaking down into tears.

Following a submission by Campbell, Dickey recommended Elliott serve his time at Nanaimo Regional Correctional Centre, which has a dedicated drug treatment centre.

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A man described by police as a serial bank robber linked to crimes across Western Canada is expected to enter guilty pleas later this month to charges stemming from multiple holdups.

Shaun Cornish was slated to plead guilty to seven counts in a Kamloops courtroom yesterday, but his lawyer asked for more time to deal with additional charges recently laid. Cornish was arrested on Jan. 30, 2015, at a hotel in Grande Prairie, Alta., two days after a bank robbery in nearby Dawson Creek, B.C.

The 28-year-old Langley native has been charged in relation to at least nine bank robberies spanning B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan. 

The charges to which Cornish was scheduled to plead guilty yesterday related to robberies in Merritt, Vernon, Princeton and Aldergrove between December 2014 and January 2015.

Cornish is also facing three charges stemming from the alleged Dawson Creek robbery on Jan. 28, 2015, as well as multiple charges in communities across Alberta and Saskatchewan. He is due back in court on Sept. 26 to set a date for a new hearing, at which guilty pleas are expected to be entered.

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An Ashcroft man who beat his uncle to death two years ago may not be held criminally responsible for murder. Lawyers have scheduled a one-day hearing to determine whether Shane Gyoba should escape criminal sanction for the crime due to a mental disorder.

In June, after B.C. Supreme Court Justice Dev Dley found that the Crown had proven Gyoba killed his uncle, Ed, an assessment was ordered to determine whether the killer should be held responsible under Canada’s NCRMD (not criminally responsible by way of a mental disorder) legislation.

An assessment of Gyoba’s psychiatric state is ongoing and the hearing will take place on Nov. 29. Ed Gyoba was beaten to death in the front yard of his Aschroft home on June 2, 2014. During Shane Gyoba’s trial, he made frequent outbursts and threatened the judge and lawyers.

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A junior mining company that alleges KGHM Ajax drilled its claim without permission — rendering it worthless — must pay a $25,000 deposit to continue its lawsuit, a B.C. Supreme Court judge has ruled.

Cicada Ventures filed a statement of claim in May alleging unauthorized access by KGHM Ajax to claims it holds in the area of the historic Ajax pit. It also alleges the company breached an agreement to pay it $1.3 million for mineral rights to what are known as the Iron Mask claims.

As part of planning to locate infrastructure for its proposed expansion of the historic Ajax mine south of Aberdeen, KGHM drilled the claims in 2014 and found no mineral resources.

Such drilling is known as “condemnation drilling” and is done to ensure economic minerals aren’t trapped beneath mills or waste dumps, for example.

KGHM filed an application this summer claiming that Cicada had no way to pay court costs in the event it lost the lawsuit. It asked the B.C. Supreme Court to require Cicada to post $62,000 as security or abandon the lawsuit.

Master Robert McDiarmid ruled Cicada must post a lesser amount, $25,000, to continue the lawsuit.

While Cicada has no assets and considerable debt, McDiarmid said ”the principals of the plaintiff [Cicada] may well have some ability to pay costs.”

Jeff Frame, the lawyer acting for Cicada, made an analogy to a scratch and win lottery ticket, claiming by drilling and finding no mineralization, KGHM Ajax scratched the window on the ticket.

“Once it is scratched and there is a determination that it is not a ‘winner’, it has no value,” McDiarmid wrote.

KGHM Ajax claims it did not make a deal with Cicada, adding the condemnation drilling was permitted by the Ministry of Mines and Energy.

A trial date has not been set.

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A B.C. Supreme Court judge has ordered a new trial for a woman charged with traffic offences after a Kamloops justice of the peace refused to allow a witness to testify at trial.

Dianne Greenwood was convicted of speeding and failing to stop after a hearing in May in front of Kamloops judicial justice of the peace Joan Hughes.

At the hearing, Hughes denied Greenwood’s right to call a witness — namely her eight-year-old daughter, a passenger in the vehicle at the time of the alleged infractions.

Greenwood appealed her convictions and the Crown conceded.

During a brief hearing on Monday, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Dev Dley ruled Hughes’ decision to bar Greenwood’s daughter from testifying was a violation of the Canada Evidence Act.

Dley quashed both convictions, ordered a new trial for Greenwood and said it must be heard by a different judicial justice of the peace.

A date for that trial has not been set.

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A trial continued Wednesday in B.C. Supreme Court for a Kamloops man accused of raping his friend while she slept more than two years ago.

John Grant’s trial on one count of sexual assault began on Monday morning.

Crown prosecutor Don Mann said the incident took place after a chance encounter between Grant and the alleged victim at a mutual friend’s house on Feb. 23, 2014.

“They were good friends,” Mann said. “They never had a romantic relationship.”

Court heard the woman eventually left the party and went home.

Mann said Grant later texted her, asking for a place to stay, making references to concerns about his safety.

Mann said she offered Grant a spot in her king-siz’e bed and later woke up to him touching her, court heard.

According to Mann, Grant then followed the woman to a living room sofa and touched her again.

Later, court heard, the woman went to sleep in her bed, leaving Grant on the couch, but awoke to Grant having sex with her.

“The evidence will show [the woman] did not consent to the sexual activity,” Mann said.

The trial, in front of B.C. Supreme Court Justice Linda Loo, was scheduled to last three days.

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A Kamloops man facing a charge of attempted murder after allegedly beating a teen with a baseball bat had his arraignment delayed on Thursday.

Kristopher Teichrieb made a brief court appearance by video from Kamloops Regional Correctional Centre, where he has been in custody since his arrest in the early-morning hours of June 19.

Teichrieb, who was denied bail in July, has fired his lawyer and hired new counsel, Vancouver-based Eric Gottardi. Teichrieb had been scheduled to enter a plea on Thursday, but Gottardi had the arraignment pushed back a month.

Teichrieb is accused of assaulting 19-year-old Jessie Simpson, who has been on life support since the incident. Simpson’s friends and family have said he was celebrating high school graduation with classmates on the night of June 18 and may have been trying to find a group of friends when he was beaten.

It’s not clear whether Simpson entered onto Teichrieb’s Brocklehurst property prior to the attack.

Police initially said Teichrieb had confronted someone in the driveway of his Clifford Avenue home, but the alleged altercation is believed to have taken place nearby in the area of Clifford Avenue and Holt Street.

Teichrieb is due back in court on Oct. 13.

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KGHM Ajax alleges in court documents filed this week that fired senior manager Clyde Gillespie signed a document giving the mining company the right to terminate him with minimum notice and two weeks’ pay.

In B.C. Supreme Court in August, Gillespie filed a statement of claim against the company attempting to build an open pit copper-gold mine at the site of the historic Ajax pit south of Aberdeen.

The statement of claim alleges the company led Gillespie to believe he was to become the overall head of the Ajax project, but the plan ran into problems because he was an American citizen.

Turmoil struck the Kamloops office in late May when the company, under Gillespie’s leadership in Kamloops, announced it was letting go of eight full-time employes.

Little more than a week later, Gillespie was fired and escorted out of the building while other employees watched.

KGHM Ajax filed its statement of defence in B.C. Supreme Court.

It denies allegations by Gillespie that he was misled about his employment by the company and fired without its standard financial package.

The company claims it paid Gillespie four weeks’ severance “in lieu of notice with the requirements of the employment contract.”

Gillespie alleges in his lawsuit he was vulnerable because his permanent residency was not yet in place.

He also claims KGHM Ajax failed to properly compensate him for the dismissal.

Gillespie is seeking damages for pain and suffering, loss of income and expenses related to selling his Batchelor Heights home and moving back to the United States.

When Gillespie moved to Kamloops in May 2014 to head project development, KGHM Ajax was forced to obtain a labour market impact assessment to show a Canadian could not be hired to perform the job.

None of the claims have been heard or proven in court.

A trial date has not been set.

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A B.C. Supreme Court judge has ruled a Kamloops woman who woke up to find her friend having sex with her was incapable of consent, in part because she is a heavy sleeper.

John Grant was convicted on Friday of sexual assault stemming from an incident on the Tk’emlups Indian Band reserve in February 2014.

Court heard Grant was spending the night at the home of his close female friend after she picked him up from a mutual friend’s birthday party.

Grant was drunk, court heard, and told his friend, with whom he had never been romantically involved, that he wanted to have sex with her. When she said no, he began to flex his muscles and make bizarre “macho statements” including, “I’m in good shape” and “I’m a good hockey player.”

The woman told Grant to sleep in her king-size bed. After she finished folding laundry, court heard, she went to sleep on a corner of the bed away from Grant.

Some time later, she woke up to Grant touching her sexually. She confronted him, retreated to a couch and fell back asleep, only to be awoken again to sexual touching by Grant.

The woman went back to sleep in her bed a short time later, believing Grant was not in her bedroom. She eventually woke up to him on top of her engaged in sexual intercourse.

“When she is asleep, she is unable or incapable of consenting to sexual activity,” B.C. Supreme Court Justice Linda Loo said in handing down her guilty verdict.

Following the conviction, Loo placed Grant on an order barring him from entering TIB reserve land, pending sentencing, except for work purposes.

Sentencing for Grant, who is free on bail, will take place at a later date.

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A former high-profile Kamloops Mountie has yet to appear personally in court to face allegations she trafficked in cocaine while a member of the RCMP.

Randi Love is facing three counts of trafficking cocaine. A lawyer appeared on her behalf in the Kamloops Law Courts on Monday and had her matters put over for two weeks.

Charges were laid against the 40-year-old in May. According to court documents, the allegations date back to three days in June 2015, when Love was still employed as an RCMP constable, but was off the job on injury leave.

Police launched an investigation into Love’s activities last summer. In October, she submitted her resignation papers to the RCMP.

Love made headlines in 2013 when she testified at the fraud trial of her former boyfriend, RCMP Const. Trent Wessner, who was convicted of bilking Costco out of $400 based largely on Love’s testimony. Wessner left policing following the conviction.

In 2008, Love worked as the media-relations officer at the Kamloops RCMP detachment, acting as the de facto face of the city’s police.

She is due back in court on Oct. 3.

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A monk in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kamloops is expected to stand trial on an allegation he sexually interfered with a person under 16 years of age.

A lawyer representing Brother Darvin Regaspi Dominic Grageda indicated in court on Monday that he plans to enter a plea of not guilty.

Grageda was charged following an alleged incident in Cache Creek on April 26. According to court documents, he “did, for a sexual purpose, touch directly or indirectly, with a part of his body or with an object, the body of [the complainant], a person under the age of 16 years.”

Grageda is affiliated with the order Servants of the Risen Christ, which runs an operation at Immaculate Heart of Mary Shrine and Centre in Cache Creek.

KTW phoned the centre on Monday and spoke to Grageda, who said he could not comment.

A date for Grageda’s one-day trial has not yet been set. He is due back in court on Oct. 6 to fix a date for trial.

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A man and a woman have pleaded guilty to attempted robbery charges after beating a 69-year-old Good Samaritan who gave them a ride after finding them stranded on the side of the highway.

Cory Battilana and Samantha Vleeming entered guilty pleas in B.C. Supreme Court in Kamloops on Monday to charges stemming from an incident late last year, with Vleeming being sentenced to time served in jail and Battilana getting two years in prison,

On Nov. 25, 2015, the pair was stranded on the Okanagan Connector between Kelowna and Merritt after crashing a Jeep into the median during a snowstorm. Crown prosecutor Adrienne Murphy said a passerby stopped and offered them a ride to Merritt, which they accepted.

Battilana got into the front passenger seat and Vleeming sat in the back, behind the driver. The pair directed the Good Samaritan to a rural area west of Merritt before Battilana told him to pull over.

“Mr. Battilana told [the driver] that he was to pull over and get out of the vehicle,” Murphy said, noting the driver refused. “Mr. Battilana started hitting him in the right side of his face.”

Murphy said the driver resisted, but eventually pulled over after Vleeming grabbed him from behind and bit his neck.

A scuffle ensued and the driver got out of his car, a 2010 Honda CRV, with the key in the ignition, but with the fob in his hand. The vehicle would not start for Battilana without the fob and his efforts to get it going quickly drained the battery.

Battilana and Vleeming then ran away, leaving the driver stranded.

“He was saying to them, ‘Don’t leave me here. Please let me have my cellphone,'” Murphy said. “But they did indeed leave him there.”

The driver went to a nearby house and called police. Battilana and Vleeming eventually called a cab and were taken to a Merritt motel at which they had been staying prior to the incident.

Police eventually tracked them down and an RCMP tactical team took them into custody.

Vleeming served nearly seven months in jail before being granted bail in June. On Monday, she was sentenced to time served with a one-year probation term, a 10-year firearms ban and an order she surrender a sample of her DNA to a national criminal database.

Battilana, who has been in custody since his arrest, was sentenced to two more years behind bars and banned from possessing firearms for life. He was also ordered to submit a sample of his DNA to a national criminal database.

In addition, both were ordered to pay $500 in restitution.

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The former president of the Kamloops-Thompson Teachers’ Association denies owing $9,000 in personal credit card expenses to the union office.

Jason Karpuk filed a statement of defence in small claims court in the wake of a lawsuit filed by the teachers’ association, which claims Karpuk failed to repay $8,965 he owed for personal expenses on a union credit card.

Karpuk denies all the union’s allegations in a statement of defence filed in provincial court:

“The defendant says that he has repeatedly asked the claimant for an accounting as to how they have arrived at this allegation that there is debt owing and has not yet received the same.”

Karpuk further claims, following discussions with those managing the union’s books, “that there was no indebtedness owed by him.”

None of the allegations have been heard or proven in court.

The two sides filed notice for a settlement conference, during which a deal could be reached.

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One of the men facing charges in relation to a double-murder and kidnapping in east Vancouver last weekend has a criminal connection to Kamloops.

Gopal Figueredo is facing kidnapping, unlawful-confinement, extortion and aggravated-assault charges in connection to the Sept. 17 slayings of Xuan Bacao and Samantha Le.

Figueredo was one of three men arrested Monday in New Westminster as part of the investigation into the murders           of Bacao and Le.

Pol said the kidnapping victim was rescued during the arrest.

Figueredo received a three-year prison sentence in Kamloops last year for his role in a 2014 residential break-in in Cherry Creek, which culminated in a number of arrests on the property of the New Afton Mine.

Figueredo and three other men — Ellwood Bradbury, Triston Wight and Anees Mohammed — were arrested a short time after the July 3, 2014, break-and-enter.

In the vehicle in which the men had been travelling, police found cash, five firearms and ammunition.

A number of the firearms were stolen from the Cherry Creek home.

Figueredo’s three-year sentence was reduced significantly by the 22 months he served in custody awaiting sentencing.

He is expected to make his first court appearance in Vancouver on Thursday in connection to the new charges.

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A Kamloops man has admitted his part in a 2014 home invasion in which the target was, apparently, a $60,000 stash of drugs.

Steven Insua pleaded guilty Thursday to break and enter with intent to commit an indictable offence, stemming from a March 16, 2014, incident at a home on York Avenue in North Kamloops.

The Crown previously said Insua and three other men entered the North Kamloops home and demanded missing drugs worth $60,000.

Court heard a former tenant of the home is believed to have been a drug dealer who moved out prior to the incident — after a significant amount of drugs went missing.

At a previous hearing, court heard the victims of the home invasion were a single mother, two teenaged boys and their grandmother.

Insua, who is not in custody, is slated to return to court next week for sentencing.

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A Kamloops man named Gardian Angel is expected to enter pleas next week to two charges alleging sexual misconduct with a child.

The 53-year-old is charged with one count each of sexual assault and sexual touching of a person under 16.

The charges stem from an alleged incident on July 9 in Kamloops.

Angel is not in custody and is slated to appear in Kamloops provincial court for arraignment on Monday.

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The case against a Shuswap man accused in a hit-and-run crash that left a Kamloops-Thompson school district employee dead has been set back a month to allow the Crown to hand over more disclosure to defence.

Brian Watson was killed in a two-vehicle collision in Magna Bay on April 3. Police have said the 60-year-old grandfather was struck by a pickup truck from behind while riding his motorcycle.

Raymond Edward Swann, 55, is facing charges of criminal negligence causing death and failing to stop at an accident. He did not appear in person yesterday as his lawyer asked for more time to receive and review information from prosecutors.

Watson, from Chase, worked as a painter for the school district.

A Kamloops paint shop named a shade, Bri’s Brown, in his honour after his death.

Swann, who is not in custody, is due back in court on Oct. 24.

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A junior hockey goaltender facing allegations he sexually interfered with a young person and was in possession of child pornography has had his case adjourned so he can return from camp with a team.

Connor Neurauter is charged with one count each of sexual interference of a person under 16 and possession of child pornography.

A lawyer appeared on the 19-year-old’s behalf during a brief hearing Thursday in Kamloops provincial court.

Sheldon Tate said his client is away at a hockey camp and asked to have his arraignment adjourned to Oct. 6.

The sexual interference charge against Neurauter dates back to 2015.

He is alleged to have possessed child pornography on March 30, 2016.

Neurauter, who is from Kamloops, spent part of last season with a junior A team in Ontario.

He has also played for various junior teams in B.C.

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