A B.C. Supreme Court judge has made an interim order requiring Kamloops This Week to remove two online postings in a three-part series about an alleged murder.

Justice Ian Meiklem made the order on Friday after Crown prosecutor Joel Gold argued some of the material in the stories could prejudice potential jurors and impact Peter Beckett’s right to a fair trial.

Earlier this week, Meiklem made another order prohibiting KTW from publishing information from certain documents — disclosure documents provided to Beckett by the Crown — based on the same concerns for Beckett’s right to a fair trial.

According to KTW editor Christopher Foulds, the newspaper complied with the June 30 order, which stated, in its entirety:

“No information contained in any disclosure materials provided to the accused, Mr. Beckett, by Crown counsel on Police file Nos. 201E-11204, 2012-6886 or court files 21595 (Salmon Arm), 89599 (Port Coquitlam), 96100 (Kamloops) or 96101 (Kamloops) shall be published in any document or broadcast or transmitted in any way unless it is taken as evidence in court at the trial of the accused before the jury.”

Foulds said KTW respected the order and published an article that drew from sources other than the disclosure documents.

“Upon consulting our lawyer, we complied with the order to the letter as we did not publish any information from disclosure documents,” Foulds said. “We did not oppose the order and instead relied on information gathered via interviews with Beckett and from a pre-trial conference, content from which was not, and is not, subject to a publication ban.”

A full hearing is expected to take place next week to determine whether the second and third parts of the Beckett series can be re-posted online.

Beckett is charged with one count of first-degree murder and is also accused of conspiring to kill five Crown witnesses. His wife, Laura Letts, drowned in Upper Arrow Lake in 2010. Beckett was arrested and charged with her murder a year later.

A date for his trial before a B.C. Supreme Court jury has not been set, but pre-trial hearings to determine the admissibility of evidence are slated to begin in September.

The post Crown obtains interim injunction on Beckett stories appeared first on Kamloops This Week.

A defence lawyer urged a B.C. Supreme Court justice on Friday to ignore allegations his client has gang connections.

Crown and defence lawyers presented their sentencing positions for Adam Colligan, who was found guilty in March on six charges, including aggravated assault and extortion with a firearm.

Prosecutor Adrienne Murphy argued Colligan should serve five to six years in jail for the events in May 2013. The minimum for the firearms-related offences is four years.

Defence lawyer Dale Melville told Justice Dev Dley his client should be sentenced to a five-year term of prison.

The 28-year-old was charged after Al Powell, an admitted marijuana dealer and advocate for the legalization of cannabis, was shot in the bathroom of his North Shore home in 2013.

Prior to the shooting, Colligan had attempted to strong-arm Powell into buying his marijuana supply directly from him and his associates who, court heard, were affiliated with the Independent Soldiers gang.

Powell attempted to wrestle the gun away from his attackers and a shot was fired, striking him in the knee.

During the trial, court heard evidence that Powell was pistol-whipped and shown Independent Soldiers paraphernalia. There was also suggestion Powell said his supplier was the Hells Angels.

But, Melville urged Dley to reject any suggestion Colligan was affiliated with a criminal organization.

“There was no evidence toward [a finding of] criminal organization,” he said. “There was no expert evidence.”

Taking the stand in his own defence, Colligan claimed to have spent May 11, 2013, with his girlfriend, eating appetizers and watching The Notebook and other romantic movies.

The jury rejected that evidence and found him guilty as charged.

Melville said Colligan has a minor criminal record and is a candidate for rehabilitation with strong family support. However, a pre-sentence report stated RCMP have said his family, including brother Daniel, has a criminal background.

Dley is set to render his decision on July 24.

The post Gang-connection argument at centre of sentencing arguments in Kamloops appeared first on Kamloops This Week.

KENNETH KNUTSON

Kamloops RCMP Cpl. Jean-Rene Michaud is recovering from the December 2014 shooting.

The man accused of shooting a Kamloops Mountie last year has had his court case pushed back once again.

Kenneth Knutson appeared briefly by video in Kamloops provincial court on Monday, having his matters put over for three weeks.

The 36-year-old is charged with offences including attempted murder stemming from the Dec. 3, 2014, shooting of Kamloops RCMP Cpl. Jean-Rene Michaud.

The officer was shot while performing a traffic stop in Batchelor Heights. Knutson was arrested following an extensive manhunt that lasted more than 12 hours.

He is a convicted killer with a lengthy criminal history and has ties to Lower Mainland drug gangs.

Michaud is recovering from his injuries at home.

Knutson, who remains in custody, is due back in court on Aug. 3 to set a date for a preliminary inquiry.

The post Accused in shooting of Kamloops Mountie back in court on Aug. 3 appeared first on Kamloops This Week.

After his wife was left brain-damaged following an alleged misdiagnosis, a Kamloops man threatened to drive his truck through the front doors of Royal Inland Hospital armed with a shotgun.

As a result, 77-year-old Marshal Duliba has been slapped with a firearms ban — despite never having been charged with a crime.

Duliba was in Kamloops provincial court on Tuesday for a prohibition hearing stemming from last year’s incident.

Court heard a frustrated Duliba was speaking on the phone with a Service BC employee on Dec. 10 when he made a startling statement.

“He said he would drive his vehicle through the front doors of the hospital to get the attention of Interior Health,” Kamloops RCMP Const. Charlene Gladue testified.

“He said Interior Health had made an error in his wife’s diagnosis and her medication, which resulted in a worse illness. He wanted to get an answer and he wanted to get some attention to this matter.”

Gladue said the threat brought about a strong response from police, who set up a perimeter around the hospital within minutes and also descended on Duliba’s Kemano Street home in North Kamloops.

Court heard Duliba and his wife were both home when police arrived. Investigators seized a double-barrel shotgun, two boxes of ammunition and a pellet gun.

Duliba said his wife entered RIH in May 2012 with a minor ailment.

“She walked into the hospital with a skin infection on her foot,” he said. “Three days later, they gave her medication that made her stop breathing. She just about died. They put her in ICU for three weeks, then 11-and-a-half months in the hospital, eight months in Ponderosa.

“Finally, I had to install a wheelchair lift so she could come home to the house. I had to hire a care worker.”

Duliba admitted he was fuming when speaking to the Service BC worker, but maintained there was never a threat.

“Was it a threat or was it a question?” he asked. “I asked about driving my truck in to the hospital. Would they notice if I did that? It was a question, but everyone takes it as a threat.

“It’s strictly the brain damage when they gave her those three medications at the hospital.

“So, you wonder why I got frustrated? Maybe a person says things they don’t really mean.

“I guess they’re doing their jobs, but I don’t think it’s necessary to send all these cops down to my house and make my neighbours think I’m destroying the neighbourhood.”

While Duliba was not charged with any criminal offences stemming from the events of Dec. 10, the Crown was seeking a firearms ban of three to five years.

Duliba wanted his shotgun returned, noting it is worth $1,000 and he would like to sell it to help pay for his wife’s care bills.

He still owes $8,000 for care his wife received at Ponderosa Lodge — a bill he refuses to pay on principle.

“I said, ‘I have to pay for this after what you did at the hospital, to make her recover?'” Duliba said.

“They said, ‘Too bad, so sad — you pay it.’

“I’m so frustrated with everything. Interior Health is good for nothing. They said, ‘We’ll see to it that it doesn’t happen to anybody else.’ I said, ‘Yeah, that helps me a heck of a lot.’

“I just want to get my shotgun back so it’s not another $1,000 wasted.”

Kamloops provincial court Judge Chris Cleaveley was sympathetic to Duliba’s circumstances, but ordered a one-year firearms ban nonetheless.

“I can understand why you said that, based on what I heard today, and I can understand your being frustrated and angry,” Cleaveley said, ruling that Duliba’s statement was a threat and not a question.

“Your anger and your frustration got the best of you.”

The post Frustrated Kamloops man who threatened to drive truck into hospital armed with shotgun gets firearms ban appeared first on Kamloops This Week.

A defence lawyer urged a B.C. Supreme Court justice to ignore allegations his client has gang connections.

Crown and defence lawyers presented their sentencing positions for Adam Colligan, who was found guilty in March on six charges, including aggravated assault and extortion with a firearm.

Prosecutor Adrienne Murphy argued Colligan should serve five to six years in jail for the events in May 2013. The minimum for the firearms-related offences is four years.

Defence lawyer Dale Melville told Justice Dev Dley his client should be sentenced to a five-year term in prison.

Dley is set to render his decision on July 24.

Colligan, 28, was charged after Al Powell, an admitted marijuana dealer and advocate for the legalization of cannabis, was shot in the bathroom of his North Shore home in 2013.

Prior to the shooting, Colligan had attempted to strong-arm Powell into buying his marijuana supply directly from him and his associates who, court heard, were affiliated with the Independent Soldiers gang.

Powell attempted to wrestle the gun away from his attackers and a shot was fired, striking him in the knee.

During the trial, court heard evidence that Powell was pistol-whipped and shown Independent Soldiers paraphernalia. There was also suggestion Powell said his supplier was the Hells Angels.

But, Melville urged Dley to reject any suggestion Colligan was affiliated with a criminal organization.

“There was no evidence toward [a finding of] criminal organization,” he said. “There was no expert evidence.”

Taking the stand in his own defence, Colligan claimed to have spent May 11, 2013, with his girlfriend, eating appetizers and watching romantic movies.

The jury rejected that evidence and found him guilty as charged.

Melville said Colligan has a minor criminal record and is a candidate for rehabilitation with strong family support. However, a pre-sentence report stated RCMP have said his family has a criminal background.

The post Accused in Kamloops shooting to be sentenced appeared first on Kamloops This Week.

A Kamloops man described by police as “an incredible drain on community resources” has been jailed for two months.

Patrick Bebonang pleaded guilty to two counts of causing a disturbance stemming from separate incidents last month.

The 41-year-old was arrested on June 13 when he drunkenly walked into a downtown Starbucks and sat down at a table, refusing to leave when asked to do so by an employee. Court heard he appeared to be close to passing out.

When he was arrested, police found a container of high-alcohol hand sanitizer in his bag.

He was released from custody on a promise to appear in court, but ended up in jail the following day after a clerk at Movie Mart called police to report an intoxicated man refusing to leave the store.

Once again, police found hand sanitizer in Bebonang’s possession.

“Police describe him as an incredible drain on community resources,” said Crown prosecutor Alex Janse, noting Bebonang has taken to asking to be transported to hospital when arrested so he can sleep in a more comfortable setting.

“He then steals hand sanitizer from the hospital, where they have it readily available at several locations,” she said.

Janse asked Kamloops provincial court Judge Stephen Harrison to jail Bebonang for three to four months.

“The only time Mr. Bebonang is not causing a disturbance and creating problems for police is when he is in custody,” she said.

Bebonang has a lengthy criminal record, with more than 45 convictions.

In 2014, he was convicted four times of causing a disturbance.

Defence lawyer Jeremy Jensen argued jail is not a good method of social pest control.

“Locking somebody up just because they are a nuisance is a slippery slope,” he said.

Bebonang, who has been in jail since June 14, said he’s not proud of his actions.

“I’ve lost all willpower to live and even wake up in the morning,” he said.

“Unfortunately, I have to because my eyes keep opening. I don’t like to be a nuisance to society and a drain on resources. That’s not nice to do.”

Harrison handed Bebonang a 60-day jail sentence, but not before offering a warning.

“Your conduct is not just a nuisance to others, it should also be a grave concern to yourself,” the judge said.

“You’re going to do yourself in if you carry on like this.”

The post Community ‘nuisance’ gets sentence and warning appeared first on Kamloops This Week.

The necessity of having to rescue his escaped cattle from the South Thompson River was not enough to convince a judge to acquit a Pritchard farmer charged last fall with driving while prohibited.

Don Short stood trial in Kamloops provincial court on Tuesday.

Court heard the 69-year-old caught the attention of police after pulling a U-turn in front of an RCMP road block near the Pritchard Store on Oct. 23.

Chase RCMP Const. Carl Kennedy said he followed the pickup truck for about two minutes before it pulled into Short’s property.

Short got out of the driver’s side door and admitted he had been behind the wheel.

“He told me he was driving because he had received a report that his cows had escaped and were on the roadway,” Kennedy said.

“He advised that he had to travel to that location quickly.”

Short was arrested and released on a promise to appear in court.

His truck was impounded.

Testifying in his own defence, Short said he had no choice but to go after his runaway cattle after his neighbour gave him a heads-up.

“I got a phone call from Tammy,” he said.

“She said, ‘Your cattle are heading for the highway.’ I jumped into the truck, drove down to the gate and said, ‘Let’s go. We gotta get the cattle from the highway.’”

Defence lawyer Jay Michi argued it was a necessity for Short to go after his cows.

Short’s fence runs into the South Thompson River.

Michi said the fact the animals had escaped that enclosure presented “imminent peril.”

Kamloops provincial court Judge Len Marchand, however, ruled Short should have known river levels fluctuate and that his  cattle were not in imminent danger.

Short was sentenced to 14 days in jail, to be served on weekends.

He was also handed a one-year driving ban.

The post Holy cow! Farmer’s defence doesn’t moooove judge appeared first on Kamloops This Week.

Ten people face charges for trafficking and possession of drugs or stolen property following an RCMP investigation late in 2014 and early this year.

Kamloops RCMP made arrests resulting largely in drug-trafficking charges in an investigation between September 2014 and January of this year.

One man has already been sentenced to jail on a weapons charge.

Const. Jason Epp said the following people are facing charges:

Reegan Winofsky for trafficking; Mathew Hickson for possession of drugs for the purpose of trafficking and a prohibited weapon, Racquel Friedel on drug possession for trafficking, Joseph Diotte, Patrick Radies, Dustin Sigouin, Devon Smeeton, Kristin Hunt and Amy Begon for trafficking; and Curtis Cederfeldt for possession for the purpose of trafficking.

Some of the accused face multiple counts.

Police said a warrant has been issued for Hunt’s arrest, while the others have made appearances in court.

Another person involved in the investigation, Hugh McIntosh, was recently sentenced to two years in jail for possession of a prohibited firearm, police said. He was jailed last year on another weapons charge.

The post Charges long after arrests were made in Kamloops appeared first on Kamloops This Week.

A Tobiano man who was busted with more than $20,000 in stolen equipment earlier this month has been sentenced to spend nearly a year behind bars.

James Ashley Jerome Cousineau will also spend one year on probation with a number of conditions, including one barring him from going to Tobiano.

Cousineau pleaded guilty on Monday in Kamloops provincial court to four counts of possession of stolen property.

Court heard the 36-year-old showed up on police radar following a June 30 traffic stop near Cherry Creek. At the time, a Kamloops Mountie noted a Kawasaki ATV in the back of his pickup truck.

The ATV had been reported stolen in Alberta, but had not yet been entered into the computer system used by police. When it showed up on the system on July 9, investigators visited Cousineau’s rented Tobiano home.

At Cousineau’s Colebrook Road home, Mounties found two ATVs outside and another in an underground parking stall. A stolen electric welder was also found on a trailer.

Cousineau has a lengthy criminal history, including a dozen convictions for property-related offences, but had not been in trouble with the law for more than six years.

Cousineau is originally from Ontario and spent time in Alberta before settling in B.C. after being granted parole in Kamloops.

Kamloops provincial court Judge Len Marchand called Cousineau’s actions “a very substantial crime spree.”

“It’s not like theft under where you go into the grocery store because you’re hungry or sell some small items at a pawn shop to feed a drug habit,” he said.

“This is major crime.”

The Crown had been seeking a one-year jail term, but Marchand sentenced Cousineau to 300 days behind bars.

The post 300 days in jail for Tobiano man busted with $20K of stolen goods appeared first on Kamloops This Week.

A Kamloops man who was arrested for prohibited driving an hour after receiving a 24-hour suspension has been acquitted despite the fact a provincial court judge thinks he is probably guilty.

Court heard Percy Korosi was stopped at an RCMP roadblock on Overlanders Bridge at 9:30 p.m. on Dec. 12, 2014, while driving a pickup he had borrowed from a friend.

RCMP Const. Guillaume Pelletier testified he could smell marijuana in the vehicle and asked Korosi to pull ahead to a secondary investigation area.

There, Pelletier said, another officer performed a sobriety test and Korosi, 49, was handed a 24-hour driving ban.

Pelletier said Korosi was told to wait for the truck’s owner to pick up the vehicle.

Pelletier and an auxiliary constable, Cory Lockwood, then left the scene to deal with another call, eventually pulling over a suspected impaired driver near the Dirty Jersey Pub on Eighth Street in North Kamloops.

“Const. Pelletier was investigating an impaired driver when I witness this same exact vehicle drive past us on York Avenue and enter into the Dirty Jersey parking lot,” Lockwood testified.

“I informed Const. Pelletier that was the vehicle we had been dealing with on the Overlanders Bridge. He advised me to keep eyes on the vehicle. I could see clearly that there was one occupant in the vehicle.”

Lockwood said he watched the truck for about 10 minutes. Eventually, a car pulled up beside it and the truck’s occupant got out and entered the second vehicle.

The car then left the parking lot and was immediately stopped by Lockwood.

“Mr. Korosi was in the passenger seat where I saw the driver of the truck get into,” Lockwood said. “At that time, I advised him that he was under arrest for driving while prohibited and please step out of the car.”

Taking the stand in his own defence, dressed in a Saskatchewan Roughriders jersey, Korosi said he was “100 per cent innocent.”

“Yes, I was at a check stop,” he said. “Yes, I smelled like marijuana. They gave me a 24-hour — hey, that’s great. I can live with that.”

Korosi said he did not drive the truck to the Dirty Jersey. Rather, he said, his brother came by and drove the vehicle to the pub because he wanted to go inside to drink.

For that reason, Korosi said, he took the keys back from his brother and waited for his roommate to pick him up.

Korosi said Lockwood must not have seen his brother leave the truck and enter the pub.

He also admitted to sitting in the truck’s driver seat while waiting for his ride in the Dirty Jersey parking lot.

“His version about how he got into the driver seat makes absolutely no sense,” Crown prosecutor Evan Goulet argued.

“Variously he wanted to have the keys, that it would be quicker to get into the other vehicle or he wanted to turn the heat on.

“None of these explanations make any sense and the reason for that is they just are not true.”

Korosi, who was not represented by a lawyer, maintained his innocence in his closing submission.

“Cops are only human,” he said to Kamloops provincial court Judge Len Marchand.

“I’ve been a human for 50 years, almost. I’m still a human. I make mistakes.

“If you find me guilty, you find me guilty. I still know I’m 100 per cent innocent. It’s your call, captain.”

Marchand said he couldn’t wrap his head around the fact someone who had just received a 24-hour suspension would drive past a police car and park in a lot in plain sight.

“If Mr. Korosi was driving, he’d surely keep driving or park out of plain view,” the judge said.

“While I find that Mr. Korosi was probably driving while prohibited, that is not enough to secure a conviction.”

Korosi had a brief response to Marchand’s decision: “Sweet.”

The post Acquittal despite hazy path to truth appeared first on Kamloops This Week.

Robert Dziekanski (above) wandered for hours unaided in Vancouver International Airport before becoming frustrated, prompting authorities there to call police. Four officers tasered the Polish man five times quickly after arriving. He died within minutes of cardiac arrest.

RCMP officer Monty Robinson.

A second ex-RCMP officer has been sentenced to prison for lying to a public inquiry into the tasering death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski, the son of a Kamloops woman.

Former RCMP Cpl. Benjamin (Monty) Robinson was sentenced Friday to two years less a day in jail, one year of probation and 240 hours of community service for his false testimony to the Braidwood Inquiry into Dziekanski’s death in Vancouver International Airport in 2007.

It follows the 30-month prison sentence handed down last month for perjury to Const. Kwesi Millington, who fired the stun gun and was found to have exaggerated the threat a stapler-brandishing Dziekanski posed to officers in the confrontation caught on cellphone video.

Millington was granted bail while an appeal is underway.

Dziekanski wandered for hours unaided at the airport before becoming frustrated, prompting authorities there to call police.

The four officers tasered the Polish man five times quickly after arriving. He died within minutes of cardiac arrest.

No criminal charges were laid against the officers, who had been found in the public inquiry to have deliberately misrepresented what happened.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Nathan Smith found Robinson colluded with other officers on what they would tell the inquiry and said a police officer failing to tell the truth strikes at the very heart of the justice system.

Dziekanski’s mother, Zofia Cisowski, said the sentencings bring some closure eight years after the tragedy.

“No sentence would bring my son back,” she said after the court decision.

Her lawyer, Walter Kosteckyj, said the Braidwood Inquiry and perjury proceedings would never have been necessary had the RCMP reacted appropriately to the fatality from the outset.

Instead, he noted, senior Mounties initially denied the taser was fired more than twice despite possessing the video that contradicted officers’ claims.

“The RCMP has to take a long hard look at themselves and reflect on how long this has taken and why it has taken this long,” Kosteckyj said.

“I think the public generally should question the effectiveness of the RCMP as our leading police agency and ask for more and expect more from them.”

While the maximum prison term for perjury is 14 years, no sentence handed down has ever been longer than the nine years given Air India bomb-maker Inderjit Singh Reyat in 2011.

Two other officers involved in the tragedy were acquitted of perjury.

The post Robinson sentenced to two years for perjury; former Mountie lied about Dziekanski tasering appeared first on Kamloops This Week.

Adam Colligan.

A drug dealer who attempted to strong-arm another drug supplier into purchasing drugs and shot him in a struggle was sentenced Friday to seven years in jail.

Adam Colligan 28, was charged after Al Powell, an admitted marijuana dealer and advocate for the legalization of cannabis, was shot in the bathroom of his North Shore home in 2013.

Prior to the shooting, Colligan had attempted to strong-arm Powell into buying his marijuana supply directly from him and his associates who, court heard, were affiliated with the Independent Soldiers gang.

Powell attempted to wrestle the gun away from his attackers and a shot was fired, striking him in the knee.

A jury found Colligan guilty of aggravated assault, unlawfully discharging a firearm and using a firearm for extortion.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Dev Dley said Colligan’s crime was a planned and violent invasion of Powell’s home.

“Mr. Colligan had a plan he would be Mr. Powell’s marijuana supplier . . . Mr. Colligan planned and was prepared to use violence to carry out that plan.”

During the trial, court heard evidence that Powell was pistol-whipped and shown Independent Soldiers paraphernalia. There was also suggestion Powell said his supplier was the Hells Angels.

The Crown asked for a sentence of between six and eight years, while defence argued for five years in jail. The minimum sentence is four years. Colligan has a prior record for two violent offences.

During sentencing, prosecutor Adrienne Murphy asked Dley to consider Colligan’s gang linkage.

Dley said that while Colligan he was “probably” affiliated with a criminal gang, it was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt and therefore could not be considered.

The post Drug dealer who shot Kamloops man gets seven years behind bars appeared first on Kamloops This Week.

First he got his face beat in with a cast-iron frying pan.

Now, a Merritt man has been sentenced to more than two years behind bars.

Lorne Kenneth Dunn has pleaded guilty to break-and-enter and assault in B.C. Supreme Court.

The guilty pleas came about an hour after the 28-year-old’s trial got underway this past week.

The only witness to testify was the victim, John Spahan.

Court heard Spahan was watching TV in his Clapperton Avenue home in Merritt at about 1:30 a.m. on March 28 when he heard a knock at the door.

“Lorne Dunn Jr. came to the door and he was asking for money,” Spahan said, explaining he knew Dunn previously.

“When I went to go grab the door handle and turn it, he kicked the door in and I went flying.”

Spahan said Dunn then grabbed him by the neck and began forcing him around the basement suite. The fight eventually spilled into the kitchen.

“He just kept choking me and holding on with me and pushing me forward and forward and forward until I hit the sink,” Spahan said.

“I looked down and there’s a cast-iron frying pan right there in the sink.

“I was able to straight-arm him and then I hit him with the frying pan. Then I hit him again. Then I hit him again. Then I hit him a fourth time.

“Right about then, he said, ‘OK, no more, no more, no more.'”

Dunn ran from the home. He was arrested at a nearby convenience store after someone called police reporting a man with serious injuries to his face.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Hope Hyslop sentenced Dunn to six months in jail for the assault and two years less a day for break-and-enter.

He will also be bound by an eight-month probation term once he is released from jail.

The post From the frying pan into prison appeared first on Kamloops This Week.

Radio NL DJ MIke Evenson, 37, died when his vehicle collided with a logging truck on Dec. 4, 2014. Evenson was driving westbound on Highway 1, on his way to work in Kamloops, at the time of the 4 a.m. crash.
Rick Koch photo

Mike Evenson

The widow of a local radio DJ killed in a crash on the Trans-Canada Highway near Chase is suing the driver and trucking company, alleging the semi-trailer unit crossed into the wrong lane.

Mike Evenson, 37, died after his car was involved in an accident with a logging truck on the morning of Dec. 4, 2014.

He left behind two small children and his wife, Crystal.

Evenson was a DJ with Radio NL in Kamloops. He was en route to work when the collision occurred.Radio NL in Kamloops. He was en route to work when the collision occurred.

The lawsuit filed in B.C. Supreme Court names driver Marcus Dekerf and truck owner North-Way Log Trading Ltd. of Slocan Lake in the West Kootenays.

It claims the accident was solely the fault of Dekerf, alleging he drove without due care and attention, did not obey markings or rules of the road and failed to keep his truck on the correct side of the highway.

“The accident occurred when the defendant, Dekerf, was driving the truck eastbound and the truck and/or log trailer crossed the centreline, dumping the logs on the deceased in his westbound vehicle, which crushed him . . .” the statement of claim says.

Dekerf and North-Way Trading have yet to file a statement of defence.

The lawsuit also alleges Dekerf may have dozed off.

It also alleges he made a false statement to police after the crash.

The post Widow of Radio NL Dj killed in crash files lawsuit against truck driver, company appeared first on Kamloops This Week.

Joe Leong, a former Kamloops councillor, was facing six criminal charges stemming from his role as treasurer of the Kamloops Heritage Railway Society. He will instead plead guilty to contravening two sections of the Society Act, which will result in the criminal charges being stayed.
KTW file photo

A former veteran Kamloops councillor has struck a deal to avoid trial on six criminal charges stemming from his role as treasurer of the Kamloops Heritage Railway Society.

Joe Leong will instead plead guilty to contravening two sections of the Society Act.

Leong’s defence lawyer, Ken Walker, appeared in B.C. Supreme Court yesterday to set the Aug. 11 date, when guilty pleas to two counts will be entered.

Leong will also be sentenced on that day.

In return for pleas under the act, two counts each of fraud, theft over $5,000 and breach of trust will be stayed by the Crown.

Walker said there will be a joint sentencing submission proposed together with the Crown. He declined to provide details on that submission.

Crown prosecutor Chris Balison confirmed the agreement.

The charges were laid in 2013 after Kamloops RCMP was asked by city administration to look into the finances of the Kamloops Heritage Railway Society, where Leong served for years as treasurer.

After an audit of the society’s books was completed, the city still had questions about the group’s accounting practices and what appeared to be two instances of $100,000 being moved out of society bank accounts for several months,  then returned.

The audit was called for after Leong’s successor as treasurer of the society had questions about some of the book-keeping.

Walker said the sections of the Society Act that Leong will plea to contravening involve duties of directors and disclosure of outside interests.

The post Former city councillor Joe Leong reaches plea agreement in court appeared first on Kamloops This Week.

A Merritt man will remain in jail after a provincial court judge refused to release him on bail following allegations he strangled his spouse’s cat in a domestic dispute.

Crown prosecutor Alex Janse argued Frederick Drynock, 49, should remain in jail pending his trial or guilty plea because he was a risk to break court orders and the alleged killing of the cat showed a propensity toward domestic violence.

“There’s a link between animal cruelty and domestic violence,” Janse argued. “Harm to the cat was used to control and express violence toward his partner.”

The allegations against Drynock have not been proven in court. He is charged under the Criminal Code with unlawfully killing an animal and causing unnecessary suffering to an animal.

The cat was sent for a necropsy as part of the investigation.

Janse alleged the incident occurred on July 23, when a drunken Drynock phoned his common-law wife from a Merritt hotel, telling her he was coming home. She told him to stay away.

When he arrived, she hid under a trailer.

“While she was hiding, Mr. Drynock got ahold of her cat, a 15-year-old she’d had since a kitten. He told her if she didn’t come out, he would kill her cat,” Janse said.

Drynock told police the cat died of old age.

Drynock has a criminal record dating from 2006 with 32 convictions, including for spousal violence. The vast majority are for failure to abide by court orders.

Defence lawyer Dmytro Antonovych unsuccessfully urged provincial court judge Roy Dickey to release Drynock on bail to live with his brother in the Lytton area, where he is able to work.

Dickey said protection of Drynock’s spouse and the public is paramount.

“He appears to have an inability to comply with court orders,” Dickey said.

The post Alleged cat keeper kept in jail appeared first on Kamloops This Week.

A judge has ordered a Kamloops excavating company to pay its former accounting clerk three months’ wages following her firing, which came after she ruffled the feathers of KGHM Ajax’s external-affairs manager at a charity golf tournament.

Gloria Davidson sued Extreme Excavating after she was fired in April 2014. Davidson, who worked for the company for more than three years, said she was let go by phone while on vacation and was offered two months’ wages as severance.

According to Davidson, Extreme Excavating owner Doug McLeod did not offer much of an explanation for her termination.

In court documents, McLeod alleged Davidson had been “insubordinate” and had “behaved badly at a charity golf tournament” Extreme Excavating was sponsoring.

The tournament in question took place in the summer of 2013. There, Davidson was tasked with working a hole, handing out water bottles and helping to run a contest.

“One of their participants, Yves Lacasse, became upset with her that she permitted a golfer to take a second shot after he was disrupted by a loud distraction,” Kamloops provincial court Judge Stella Frame said in her decision.

“Apparently, Mr. Lacasse took the contest very seriously, although there is no indication the person who was afforded the second opportunity even won the contest. Mr. Lacasse became inordinately upset. This carried over into the dinner that followed. They had a heated conversation, at which point the manager of the golf course asked Ms. Davidson to just walk away.”

Lacasse, the former superintendent of the Kamloops RCMP detachment, is external-affairs manager for the proposed KGHM Ajax copper and gold mine south of Aberdeen.

McLeod eventually abandoned his insubordination defence.

Frame ruled Davidson is entitled to three months’ wages as severance.

Davidson had also been seeking punitive damages, but Frame did not award any.

The post Kamloops company shanks firing, ordered to pay employee three months’ pay appeared first on Kamloops This Week.

Former Thompson Rivers University law professor Anne Pappas is being sued by Craig Jones, a professor of law at the school. Jones claims Pappas spread rumours about Jones and another professor in a bid to secure her position as interim dean.

A Thompson Rivers University law professor is suing a former colleague for allegedly spreading false rumours he was involved in a sexual relationship with another professor.

The university also confirmed senior law school administrator Anne Pappas, accused of spreading the false gossip, is no longer employed at the Kamloops post-secondary institution.

Prof. Craig Jones is suing Pappas for defamation. The statement of claim filed in B.C. Supreme Court sets out what Jones alleges was Pappas’s scheme to keep herself in power as interim dean of the university’s law school.

“In or about early August 2013, Pappas decided to spread a rumour to the effect that Jones and professor [Janna] Promislow had been involved in a sexual relationship and that Jones was the father of professor Promislow’s expected twins,” the statement of claim alleges.

The lawsuit claims Pappas made the statements to three different people, including a student.

Those rumours, it said, “were completely false . . . He and professor Promislow did not socialize outside of their employment relationship whatsoever.”

A statement of defence has not been filed by Papas and none of the allegations has been heard or proven in court.

Promislow offered  to provide medical evidence to the university refuting the claim that Jones fathered her twins.

Jones claims Pappas made the defamatory statements because she “came to view Jones as a rival for the deanship and believed he was undermining her in what became a power struggle between her and the majority of faculty members.”

Pappas was first hired as an assistant dean to Chris Axworthy, the former high-profile politician who became dean of what was then Canada’s newest law school. When Axworthy left TRU amid controversy, Pappas was named interim dean. The university later re-established her as assistant dean.

While the university is not a party to the lawsuit, Jones claims it sided with Pappas and initially refused to take steps to clear the reputations of himself and Promislow.

Eventually, the lawsuit states, the university administration “after repeated and insistent requests by Jones and Professor Promislow” undertook an investigation late last year.

“As a result, by early June 2015 the university satisfied itself that Pappas had repeatedly made false and derogatory statements about Jones to undermine him,” the lawsuit states.

But, the lawsuit claims, TRU president Alan Shaver ordered Jones and Promislow not to distribute university documents, given to them by him, about Pappas’s wrongdoing. Pappas was then given a nine-month period of leave “under a veil of secrecy and active misinformation.”

The lawsuit includes a May letter from the university stating Pappas has done a “tremendous job these last five years in establishing TRU Law . . .”

The university also stated in the letter that Pappas took leave to “‘recharge her batteries'” and would return to her position early in March 2016.

However, a university official has confirmed to KTW that Pappas is no longer employed at TRU.

The post TRU law professor suing former colleague, alleging she spread false sexual-relationship rumours appeared first on Kamloops This Week.

The man accused of shooting a Kamloops Mountie during a traffic stop last year will have his preliminary inquiry in December.

Ken Knutson is slated to appear in Kamloops provincial court for a preliminary inquiry beginning on Dec. 7. Preliminary inquiries are lower-court hearings to determine whether there is enough evidence to proceed to trial in B.C. Supreme Court.

Knutson, 36, is charged with a raft of serious charges — including attempted murder — stemming from the Dec. 3 shooting of RCMP Cpl. Jean-Rene Michaud.

Michaud was shot while conducting a traffic stop on a vehicle in Batchelor Heights. Knutson was arrested following an exhaustive manhunt that lasted more than 12 hours.

Knutson has been in jail since his arrest.

Michaud is recovering from his injuries at home.

RCMP brass have launched their own internal probe into the shooting with an eye to preventing similar incidents from occurring in the future.

The post Prelim date set for accused in shooting of Kamloops Mountie appeared first on Kamloops This Week.

Elwin Wheeler holds a photograph of his daughter, Deanne Wheeler, who was 26 when she was murdered on Dec. 30, 2014, by her ex-boyfriend, Christopher Butler.

A 41-year-old man who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder alternated in B.C. Supreme Court between accepting responsibility for killing his former girlfriend to blaming it on what her claimed was her demonic possession.

The first day of what was intended to be a three-day sentence hearing ended before noon on Wednesday after the Crown presented facts in the death last year of 26-year-old Deanne Wheeler.

Christopher Butler has maintained his guilt from his first interaction with police to his most recent court appearance.

He also refused legal assistance and has represented himself in court.

“In under nine minutes, Mr. Butler strangled Ms. Wheeler with a wire and then a fan cord, hit her in the head with a rock at least four times then stabbed her seven times,” said prosecutor Alex Janse, who also read text messages into court portraying Butler as a jealous ex-boyfriend bent on control.

Butler coaxed his former girlfriend to his Cherry Avenue apartment in North Kamloops on Dec. 30, 2014.

This came after weeks of jealous and sometimes threatening texts.

Janse said he coaxed her to meet him on the pretext they should remain friends.

Butler called 911 immediately after Wheeler died.

He told police he strangled Wheeler, describing her as a demon and stating: “When it entered my apartment, I set down the coffee it had bought. We went forward into the living room. It turned around and said, ‘You will no longer call me Satan’ and its eyes went huge and black . . . I feared for my life and said, ‘Die, demon, die.’”

Butler complained in court there was no way to test Wheeler for possession by evil spirits, comparing it to the ability of medical staff to determine rabies in a dog by killing it and then testing for the virus.

Butler told an undercover police operator placed in the jail immediately after his arrest that he knew before Wheeler arrived at his apartment that he would kill her.

“He also commented that demons breathe the same air that we do and that you have to cut off the air supply,” Janse said.

Despite those statements to police, Butler told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Keith Bracken he understands his crime.

“I did kill Deanna Wheeler. That’s why I’m here to take responsibility,” he said at the end of the Crown’s statement of facts.

“Deanna was a good person. She was a human being. I don’t understand,” Butler said.

“At the same time, I’m a victim in this.”

Janse said the victim’s friends and family noticed Butler increasingly jealous and stalking Wheeler before her murder.

On three occasions, he went to her home in the middle of the night where she lived with her parents. He was turned away one time by Wheeler’s father.

At another time, he wrote, “I love you” all over a truck in front of her house. He also left notes and phoned her repeatedly.

Bracken will decide on Thursday morning between three options: send Butler for a psychiatric assessment to help determine whether he is not criminally responsible by reason of a mental disorder; reject Butler’s guilty plea and order a trial; or sentence him for second-degree murder.

The Crown did not suggest a range of sentencing. The mandatory minimum before parole on the life sentence for second-degree murder is 10 years in jail.

The post Kamloops killer claims his ex-girlfriend was ‘demonic’ appeared first on Kamloops This Week.