Cancrime

Accused killer colonel ready to plead guilty: Report

2010-04-29T21:02:00.007-04:00

Colonel Russ Williams, the former Canadian Air Force commander who is an accused multiple murderer and sex offender is ready to admit his guilt, the Globe and Mail says, in this blockbuster scoop story (produced in full after the jump). Williams made an appearance in court today by video from the detention centre in Napanee, in eastern Ontario, where he's been held since his arrest nearly three months ago. Williams has ended a hunger strike that followed a botched suicide attempt, first reported here on Cancrime. My sources tell me that Williams has negotiated special treatment at the detention centre that is partly at the root of his more compliant behaviour. After Williams' suicide attempt, jail superintendent Cathy Gillis agreed to Williams' request to be served tea in his cell – apparently he's a tea lover – though it's not clear if Gillis faced orders from higher up the food chain that required her to accede to the accused killer's wishes. In exchange, he agreed he wouldn't try something crazy like trying to kill himself by jumping off an elevated surface in his cell like the sink or bed and landing on his head. Williams told Gillis that he recognized it wasn't a sure way to die. Williams still wants to die, my sources tell me. He appears to believe it's an honourable way out of his predicament, though a prison psychiatrist has determined that he isn't suicidal in the classic sense.

Police also piled on 82 new charges today, though none are as serious as the murder counts he already faces. Here's the complete news release about the additional charges:

From: Criminal Investigation Branch
DATE: April 29, 2010

Williams Faces Additional Charges

(Belleville) - Today, April 29, 2010, the Major Case Management Team, led
by Ontario Provincial Police (OPP), Criminal Investigations Branch,
working jointly with Belleville Police (BPS), Ottawa Police (OPS) and
the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service (CFNIS) laid more
charges against 46-year-old Russell Williams, of Tweed, Ontario.

The Ottawa Police Service, Belleville Police Service and OPP, with the
assistance of CFNIS, reviewed unsolved crimes in the vicinity of Ottawa,
Belleville and Tweed. As a result, Williams faces 82 additional
charges.

WILLIAMS is further charged with:

Belleville Police Jurisdiction
2 counts break, enter and theft

Ottawa Police Jurisdiction -All within the Fallingbrook area
23 counts break, enter and theft
3 counts break and enter with intent to commit an indictable
offence
8 counts attempt break and enter

Tweed/OPP Jurisdiction
36 counts break, enter and theft
7 break and enter with intent to commit an indictable offence
3 counts attempt break and enter

Following an extensive review of unsolved crimes relating to homicides,
missing persons, sexual assaults and break and enters within these
jurisdictions, (Ottawa, Belleville and Tweed), these charges today,
represent the known offences that have been linked to Russell WILLIAMS
to date.

On Sunday, February 7, 2010 Williams was arrested for the murders of
Jessica Lloyd and Marie Comeau. He remains in custody.

If anyone has information, they are asked to call the OPP, Belleville
Police, Ottawa Police or Crimestoppers.

Here's the complete Globe story, citing sources, about Williams' apparent readiness to plead guilty.

Timothy Appleby
Belleville, Ont.

Prosecutors and defence counsel for accused killer and sex predator Colonel Russell Williams have reached an agreement in principle that would see the former air base commander plead guilty to all the charges against him, including 82 new burglary-related charges laid this week, two sources close to the investigation confirm.

Held in an isolation cell at the Quinte Detention Centre in Napanee since shortly after his arrest in February, Col. Williams has ended his hunger strike, one of the sources also said.

“He wants to get this over with, he’s had enough,” the source said. “There’s been a resolution.”

In a brief court appearance by video link Thursday to address the fresh charges and remand his case to June, Col. Williams, 47, looked fitter and less haggard than he did during his last court date five weeks ago.

Since then he has made an abortive suicide attempt, by stuffing a cardboard toilet roll down his throat, and subsequently stopped eating.

“But he backed off on that and he’s eating again,” a source said.

Clad in his orange jail-issue jump suit during his five-minute court appearance, the former commander of the 8 Wing/CFB Trenton air base spoke briefly off-camera to Trenton lawyer Paul Lamain, acting as agent for the colonel’s Ottawa-based chief defence counsel, Michael Edelson.

Hastings County Crown attorney Lee Burgess also told presiding Justice of the Peace Deanna Chapelle that “there has been disclosure provided” to Col. Williams's legal team, with more coming.

Col. Williams agreed to waive a reading of the new charges, and his case was remanded to June 24.

Whether that June rendezvous will take place is unclear. If he chooses, Col. Williams can at any time waive his right to a preliminary hearing and either ask to go straight to trial in Superior Court or enter a guilty plea.

He was arrested in February and charged with two counts of first-degree murder – one committed in November, the other at the end of January – along with a slew of charges arising from a pair of home-invasion sex attacks in Tweed in September, when two women living close to his home were tied up, blindfolded and photographed in the nude.

He is accused of murdering Jessica Lloyd, 27, of Belleville and Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, 38, of Brighton. Both women were asphyxiated.

His appearance Thursday in the small crowded courtroom, his third video link, came just hours after Ontario Provincial Police announced the fresh charges, which they said arose from an “extensive review” of unsolved crimes.

Dating back to September, 2007, all 82 stemmed from break-ins in Ottawa, Belleville and Tweed.

More than half the charges – 46 – involved unlawful entry to homes in Tweed, where Col. Williams lived during the week in a lakeside cottage after assuming command of the Trenton air base last July.

They comprise 36 counts of break, enter and theft; seven counts of break, enter and theft with intent to commit an indictable offence; and three counts of attempted break-and-enter.

Thirty-two charges involved burglaries in Ottawa, all within the residential Fallingbrook area.

Two arise from break-ins in Belleville.

The burglaries targeted the empty residences of women whose lingerie was stolen. In all, 48 incidents came to attention of police.

After the colonel’s arrest, three days after a Feb. 8 spot check at a Belleville police roadblock, dozens of items were allegedly found in the garage of the Westboro-area Ottawa home Col. Williams shared with his wife.

If Col. Williams pleads guilty it would be unusual – it is rare for a defendant to plead guilty to first-degree murder and even more so when there is more than one offence.

The automatic penalty for multiple first-degree murder convictions is life imprisonment with no chance of parole for at least 25 years. (With a single conviction, the inmate can seek to make a parole application at the 15-year mark, under the so-called faint hope clause.) In this instance, however, sources familiar with the case say Col. Williams’s motivation to expedite matters is threefold: The evidence is overwhelming; he wants to minimize the anguish of his wife, Mary Elizabeth Harriman; and he sees little point in accumulating large legal bills.

Outside court, Lt. Col. Tony O'Keeffe, who has acted as a liaison between Col. Williams and the military, said he visited the colonel in jail 10 days ago and that in appearance he had improved.

“He looked better to me.”

» All of Cancrime's coverage of this story

Murder victim's husband: 'I've had 19 years of hell'

2010-04-26T23:21:00.002-04:00

Paul Rouleau is restrained by Kingston Police officers on May 6, 1991, after he rushed to the gas bar where his wife Yvonne worked. She was found murdered in the gas bar kiosk, her throat slashed (photo by Michael Lea)

The passage of decades does not dull the agony and anger of some people who endure the unimaginable horror of having a loved one murdered. This was never clearer to me than when I met recently with Paul Rouleau, a Kingston, Ontario man thrust, like an ant under a magnifying glass, into a searing light on May 6, 1991. That's the day that Rouleau's wife Yvonne was tortured, robbed and murdered at the gas bar she operated at one of Kingston's busiest intersections. Two killers, including one man who worked at the gas station, stabbed her repeatedly with a knife until she opened a safe. Then they slashed her throat and stole several thousand dollars. Her body was found by her sister, in a pool of blood on the floor of the gas bar kiosk, later that morning. Paul Rouleau had not spoken publicly about his wife's murder for more than 15 years. He felt compelled to break his silence. His wife's killers have been granted faint hope hearings, at which they can plead for earlier parole eligbility – the federal government is moving to eliminate this provision in the Criminal Code – but it comes too late for Paul Rouleau. The complete story (published in The Whig-Standard) after the jump, but here is some of what he had to say:

Paul Rouleau, a tall man with a big voice and sanguine complexion has met a reporter, for the first time in nearly two decades, to talk about his wife Yvonne.
But not really to talk about her.
“She was my wife,” he says flatly. “She was murdered, end of subject. Word – private.”
Yvonne Rouleau was tortured, robbed and murdered in 1991 in a crime that shocked Kingstonians and condemned her husband to a private agony that he has shielded from public view.
“I’ve had 19 years of hell,” he says, without elaboration.
There will be none.
“I’m a private person and this is about as public as I’ve ever got,” Rouleau says.
He doesn’t really want to be here, revisiting sordid details and sharing his family’s anguish, but he feels he has to say something. He has been provoked and he is not the kind of man to shy from provocation.
On March 5, he learned that the two men who slashed his wife’s throat and left her to die on the floor of the gas bar kiosk where she worked have been granted faint hope hearings at which they can plead for earlier parole dates.
“The justice system stinks,” he says, choosing words more publishable than those that might be expected to spill from his lips. “Life, as far as I’m concerned, should be, you go in, you come out in a box and that’s basically life.
“Someone lost a life. Where does anybody else get off having a life?”
The killers, Terry Douglas Kennedy and Richard Charles Joyce, were sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. That would be 2016.
“With parole now, it’s if you kiss the right feet, oh, you get little bonuses,” Rouleau says, lingering sarcastically over this final word.
Faint hope is, he says, “bull.”
“The worst mistake they ever done was, capital punishment, when they took it away,” he says. “Personally, I like the old West.”
Canada abolished the death penalty in 1976 and added the faint hope clause to the Criminal Code. The clause was intended to provide an incentive for long-term offenders to behave while behind bars and to rehabilitate themselves.
Rouleau laments that his taxes are paying to keep killers like Kennedy and Joyce locked up.
“Don’t forget when you’re in there, you get your university education free, you get your dental free, you get your new glasses free,” he says, nearly spitting the word free out each time he repeats it. “And when you go for medical to the hospital, guess what, you get rushed right in the door, priority one while the other individual who happens to get hit by a car or has a broken leg, you sit there and bleed a puddle in the waiting room while they take care of our special little people out there called inmates.”
Rouleau pauses during his diatribe.
“Gee, length of rope is cheap.”
The mere fact of the faint hope hearings isn’t the only provocation.
Rouleau did not know the murderers had applied for consideration under the provision until the story was published in The Whig-Standard.
He awoke at 5 a.m. that day to a radio report based on the newspaper story.
“I had to pinch myself, ‘Am I dreaming this or something like that?’ because again, nobody warned me anything about this,” Rouleau says.
He drove into the city from his Verona-area home, the same house he had bought not long before Yvonne’s murder, and quickly found a paper.
He was stunned by what he read.
“The best way to describe it, this incident ... it’s like having a scab on the back of your hand and it’s just about ready to heal and somebody rips it off,” he says. “Now you got that open wound, and here it goes, I got to start healing all over again.”
Rouleau corrects himself later.
“Well, it never really heals.”
He says he has a hard time driving past the corner of Princess and Division Streets.
The parking lot of the Shoppers Drug Mart now occupies the space where the Nozzles Gas Bar once stood. The business closed after the murder.
Yvonne Rouleau operated the station, a subsidiary of Petro Canada. Her husband operated the PetroCan station at Princess and Sir. John A. Macdonald Boulevard.
Yvonne was found inside the gas bar kiosk, just after 8:30 a.m. on May 6, 1991, sprawled on the floor in a pool of her blood.
Kennedy and Joyce were arrested nine days later. Kennedy had worked at the gas bar.
They tortured her to force her to open the safe. It held $7,800. The men planned to flee to Mexico.
In July 1992, Madam Justice Helen MacLeod sentenced the killers, after condemning their deed as a “sickening, heinous crime.”
Paul Rouleau was in the courtroom.
“I sat two rows behind them,” he recalls.
“Can I sit there and do it again? If I have to, yeah,” he adds, referring to the faint hope hearings that are yet to be scheduled.
Rouleau called the Crown attorney’s office after he learned of the hearings and is waiting for an explanation of the family’s role in the proceedings.
Families are permitted to provide information about the effect the crimes had on them.
Rouleau called his three children on March 5.
“You can’t write what they said,” he says.
Rouleau says he can only bear to visit the cemetery once a year. He has not remarried.
He will not talk about what he has done since his wife’s death, except in the most vague terms.
“One day at a time,” he says. “I try to sleep. I get up. I eat. I carry on, check on my kids, check on my mother.”
Rouleau quit the gasoline business in 1994 but he still works in Kingston.
He has begun to think about what he wants to say to his wife’s killers, though he offers no hint of what that might be.
He is accustomed only to guarding closely his private anguish.
“It’s mine,” he says, lowering his voice and speaking slowly. “It’s mine.”

Killers Terry Kennedy (left) and Richard Joyce are led into court in Kingston during their 1992 murder trial (photo by Michael Lea)

Dates for the faint hope hearings have now been set. Kennedy's begins on January 17, 2011. Joyce's hearing begins a month later, on February 14.

Prison bosses lack 'balls' to confront crisis: Doc says

2010-04-23T07:20:00.001-04:00

When Corrections Canada released a study this week that concludes that 4.6% of federal inmates had HIV in 2007, it didn't mean much to me, until I dug up this report (PDF). Corrections was not drawing anyone's attention to the second report, a 2010 document provided to the United Nations AIDS secretariat by the Canadian government. It sets out the state of the country's battle against the spread of the disease. It notes, on page 8, that Corrections Canada concludes that the infection rate for HIV among federal inmates was 1.6% in 2006. You can do the math. That's an increase of nearly 300% in the HIV infection rate in one year. After the jump, my newspaper story about the shocking statistics. I spoke to Dr. Peter Ford, a respected expert on AIDS and HIV in prison, who warns about top bosses with no balls and a government ignoring the obvious. Here's an edited version of his comments:

By Rob Tripp
Kingston Whig-Standard
April 23, 2010

An “extraordinary” one-year increase in the percentage of federal convicts with the virus that causes AIDS may signal a crisis is at hand, warns a national expert on infectious diseases behind bars.
“What they may be seeing is in fact the explosive spread that we’ve warned them about for years,” Dr. Peter Ford, a retired Queen’s University professor told the Whig-Standard, in an interview Thursday.
Newly released findings from a Corrections Canada study show that the rate of HIV infection appears to have nearly tripled in one year, from 2006 to 2007, when compared to other publicly available figures.
Ford has been treating inmates and studying the spread of HIV and hepatitis C in prisons for roughly 25 years. He still conducts telemedicine clinics for infected prisoners at federal penitentiaries across Ontario.
Ford, who found high rates of infectious disease among inmates in many of his studies, is startled by the new figures produced by Corrections.
“It’s a surprise,” he said. “It’s not in line with anything that’s been said before.”
Corrections said it found an overall HIV infection rate of 4.6% among inmates in the study – 4.5% for men and 7.9% for women – conducted in 2007. The report has just been released because, Corrections said, the findings went through a rigorous evaluation process before they could be published.
Researchers conducted detailed surveys with nearly 3,400 inmates at prisons across the country in March 2007. The infection rate is more than 20 times higher than the rate in the general population.
The findings are in stark contrast to other figures.
Corrections provided data about HIV infection for a 2010 federal government report that has been filed with the United Nations AIDS Secretariat. The 27-page Canadian report states that the infection rate among convicts was 1.6% as of Dec. 31, 2006.
The report cites the source as Corrections Canada “internal data.”
The Canadian report to the UN forms part of a package that will be presented this June to the General Assembly by the secretary general.
The latest figures suggest a one-year increase in the HIV infection rate of nearly 300%.
“Over the years, we’ve picked up inconsistencies in what they’ve said in numbers but nothing that big,” Ford said. “In one year, they’ve given us two dramatically different numbers.
“That’s extraordinary.”
Ford has always been skeptical of reports from Corrections that HIV infection among prisoners is relatively low and slow growing.
“What they’re doing in the prisons is actually sitting on a public health disaster which is very slowly evolving,” he said. “The prisons are one of the big reservoirs of HIV western world.”
Corrections Canada said comparisons between the new survey and the 2006 figures are difficult because of differences in methodology.
“The survey relied on self-reported testing results while CSC’s surveillance data relies on documented laboratory results from blood samples taken by health care professionals,” Christelle Chartrand, a spokeswoman for CSC in Ottawa, wrote in an email response to questions. “Estimates based on self-reporting are less reliable than those based on blood samples.”
The authors of the recently released report stated that the results suggest inmates answered most questions honestly.
Chartrand did not provide any explanation for the suggestion inmates would not accurately report their HIV status.
Ford said Corrections has ignored his findings for decades. In 1998, he found a 2% HIV infection rate at a medium-security federal prison in Kingston.
“We’ve got a bunch of ... senior administrators in Corrections without the balls to face up to the problem and a government that’s got its head firmly in the sand on the issue, [thinking], ‘You know, if we don’t talk about it, it’s not there,’ but its clearly getting worse.”
The federal government has refused repeated calls from advocacy groups and medical professionals to provide clean needle exchange programs in Canadian prisons.
The Ontario Medical Association and its national counterpart endorse the plan, largely because of Ford’s work.
The union representing federal prison guards has voiced strong opposition to the idea.
Ford said prison health problems become community health issues, since most inmates are eventually released.
“They’re going to spread these diseases because when they get out, they’ll do what got them infected in the first place and so this is a public health issue which nobody seems to want to talk about,” he said.
Kingston is symptomatic of the problem.
Past studies have shown that the city has a hepatitis C infection rate double the provincial rate. It is partly attributable to the prevalence of eight federal facilities in the region.
The latest Corrections study found a hepatitis C infection rate of 31% among inmates.
Ford believes the rate is probably closer to 40%. Hepatitis C is a chronic condition that can lead to serious liver problems.
Like HIV, it can be transmitted by sharing dirty needles during intravenous drug use.
Ford said the latest Corrections finding about HIV infection is troubling because epidemiological research shows that once an infectious disease affects 10% of a population, it quickly explodes to infect 60 to 70%.
“You’re now looking at a figure that may be getting perilously close to 10 per cent,” Ford said.
He said it is anyone’s guess what the current HIV infection rate of inmates is, given that the newly released data is three years old.
Federal prisons provide information about strategies to reduce the spread of hepatitis C and HIV and bleach is available on prison cellblocks so that convicts can clean their drug paraphernalia.
Ford said the bleach likely has no disinfectant value because it is watered down. He has seen inmate patients drink it to prove the point.
“What [Corrections] is doing is providing education without the means of implementation which I think is highly immoral,” he said.

Here's the Corrections Canada report released this week, turned into an e-doc for easier online reading:

"I was shocked," top Anglican says of sex charge

2010-04-21T00:03:00.005-04:00

The top Anglican official in the Kingston region told me, in a recent interview, that he was shocked by news that the former choirmaster of the Anglican cathedral in Kingston, John Gallienne, has been charged again with molesting a young boy, 20 years after he was exposed as a pedophile who preyed on choirboys for at least 15 years. Rt. Rev. George Bruce (inset) was open and welcoming when I asked him to talk about his reaction to the news and the church's response. Here's the audio of the interview (after the jump, my story from the Kingston Whig-Standard based on this interview). During the interview, you will occasionally hear comments from Wayne Varley, the executive officer of the Diocese of Ontario, who was with the bishop during the interview:

Kingston Whig-Standard
Wednesday, April 20, 2010
By Rob Tripp
The top Anglican cleric in Kingston says police investigating a sexual abuse complaint against former choirmaster John Gallienne have not asked for the church’s help but it is prepared to assist.
“If we are approached, we will co-operate fully and openly with the authorities to the best of our ability,” Rt. Rev. George Bruce told the Whig-Standard in an interview.
Bruce is the Bishop of the Diocese of Ontario, an eastern Ontario district that covers five counties and includes 45 parishes, including St. George’s Cathedral.
Gallienne was the charismatic organist and choirmaster at St. George’s for more than 15 years, until he was exposed in 1990 as a pedophile who preyed on choirboys as young as eight. Complaints were made about Gallienne years before he was prosecuted.
He was sentenced to six years in prison after he pleaded guilty to molesting 15 boys. He has been living in Ottawa since 1994, after he was released from prison.
Last week, he was charged by Kingston Police with indecent assault on a young boy between 1980 and 1982, at a time when Gallienne was a respected figure in Anglican music programs.
“I think it’s safe to say that I was shocked,” Bruce said. “I was not in the diocese when the events occurred in the 1990s.”
Bruce became bishop of the Diocese of Ontario in 2002.
He said his first thoughts were for the person who filed the complaint.
“Another 20 years have gone on since those events and this individual has had to be burdened by the pain of that,” he said. “At the moment, it’s an allegation; the court system has got to work its way through but I’ve always believed if one person was abused that’s one too many.”
Bruce said he does not agree with the notion of not prosecuting more cases from the same time period as the original complaints.
“I don’t think it’s better to let it lie,” he said. “I suppose some people would make that case, but I would say, for the individual who has been abused ... they have the right to their day in court.”
Bruce said he knows that the issue may reopen old wounds and cause pain.
“I’m aware of that but I balance that against the pain the individual suffered,” he said.
Bruce was working in the Diocese of Ottawa at the time Kingston’s Anglican community was shattered by the allegations.
Members broke into camps, some supporting the church and condemning Gallienne’s accusers, while others laid siege to the hierarchy, chastising leaders for sheltering an abuser for so many years.
Many people defended Gallienne, describing him as a flawed but brilliant man.
The church paid millions of dollars in a civil lawsuit settlement with some victims and their families. It paid for counselling and education for some victims.
Bruce could not say what the church would do if it was approached now by this latest complainant, seeking financial assistance for counselling or other services.
“That’s kind of hypothetical because I don’t know what the results of the court case are going to be,” he said. “I don’t know, given that what I read in your newspaper article is that his name is not allowed to be revealed, whether that would even happen, whether he would come and see us.”
Bruce said he does not know how the counselling and other assistance was arranged for previous victims.
“All the files on that were sealed by the court so ... I have no idea who the victims were in the previous instances,” he said.
The bishop said there’s been one preliminary discussion with the diocesan chancellor, lawyer Roy Conacher.
He said, technically, the diocese has no involvement in this issue, since it has not been approached by any authority. It knows of the situation only through media reports.
“Nobody’s approached us,” he repeated. “As I said to you, if somebody does, then we will be more than willing to be open and accountable to them.”
Bruce said he is confident that the policies and procedures created in the wake of the Gallienne scandal mean vulnerable members of all congregations are protected.
“I’m very confident in the safeguards,” he said. “We have a screening policy for people in a position of trust.
“We have a process for addressing issues of abuse, which we did not have prior to all of this coming to light.”
The diocese also has a detailed set of rules setting out procedures for its own internal investigations of allegations of sexual misconduct and discipline in its own court-like process.
The discipline procedures have not been used.
Gallienne was released on bail last week and was ordered to live at his home in Ottawa, where he has been active for years in music programs at St. John the Evangelist Anglican Church.
Anglican leaders in Ottawa have granted Gallienne permission to participate in music programs there, contrary to an edict issued in 1994 by Kingston’s bishop, Peter Mason. The Diocese of Ottawa adopted Kingston’s ban after it was first issued.
Mason barred Gallienne from ever again holding a position of leadership in the church, particularly with respect to music and choirs.
The ban remains in effect in Kingston, Bruce said, but Gallienne continues to participate in music programs in Ottawa.
“I agree with my predecessor who indicated that the pain and damage caused by Mr. Gallienne was such that he had forfeited the right to exercise leadership in music ministry,” Bruce said.
He said he spoken to the bishop in Ottawa, John Chapman.
“I speak to the bishop,” he said., “I think I get a sympathetic hearing from him but in fact I cant speak for him ... [and] much as I might like to have jurisdiction over the Diocese of Ottawa, I don’t.”
Bruce said he did not know that Gallienne had obtained a pardon from his first convictions until he learned of it in a story published in the Whig.

» All of Cancrime's coverage of this case

Scuba-diving ball burglars busted

2010-04-20T17:44:00.011-04:00

When darkness fell on the lush fairways and greens of Camden Braes golf course, near Kingston, Ontario, a pirate duo descended beneath the surface, in pursuit of sunken treasure. That's when the cops arrived. Police officers caught two men, in scuba gear, plundering the water hazards of the course. They were snatching lost golf balls, reportedly a multimillion dollar a year business (an estimated 200 million lost balls in the U.S. each year). Read the full police news release, after the jump, detailing the early-morning probe that ended with two Quebec men facing theft charges for pilfering dimpled projectiles without permission of golf course owners (that's the 6th hole at Camden Braes in the pic above).

Here's the news release issued by Ontario Provincial Police just west of Kingston:

(LOYALIST, ON) – Two Men caught scuba diving for golf balls from a local Golf Club

OPP Loyalist Officers came across 2 Quebec men scuba diving in the water hazards located on Camden Braes Golf Course, collecting submerged golf balls on April 14, at 1:00 am. They were found to be in possession of over 5000 balls from various areas. It appeared the men may have had permission to retrieve some golf balls from a list of Golf Courses in other areas, however, Camden Braes Golf Course Owner confirmed with police that the men did not have permission to collect any golf balls from his business. Police arrested and charged the two with theft under $5,000.

Pedophile Gallienne stands to lose pardon

2010-04-17T08:48:00.000-04:00

Pedophile John Gallienne (seen above in a photo of a choir at St. John the Evangelist Anglican Church in Ottawa - he's back row left in the red robe) will automatically be stripped of his pardon if he is convicted of a new sex charge laid this week by Kingston Police. Gallienne, 65, is charged with indecent assault on a young boy in Kingston in the early 1980s, when he was the beloved organist and choirmaster at St. George’s Anglican Cathedral.

In the early 1990s, he was convicted of more than 20 sex crimes involving 15 young boys he preyed on for at least 15 years through his powerful position.
Gallienne was released from prison in 1994 after serving four years of a six-year prison term. He obtained a pardon from the National Parole Board, the Whig-Standard learned, though officials will not confirm it.
“We can’t talk about specific cases,” said Caroline Douglas, the director of communications in Ottawa for the National Parole Board.
Gallienne was required to wait at least five years after the end of his prison sentence to seek the pardon.
Yves Bellefeuille, director of pardons for the board, said if a person with a pardon is convicted of a new, serious crime, the pardon is revoked in a process started by the RCMP.
“The files are reactivated and then the RCMP informs the Parole Board and, of course, other partners that were part of that file are informed and everybody reactivates the file,” Bellefeuille said, in an interview Friday, his last day on the job before retirement.
He said that a conviction for a crime that took place before the pardon was granted is still considered a new conviction that automatically overrides the pardon.
“From the moment there is new court action that took place with a conviction, at that point the person will be losing their pardon because it’s a cessation,” he said.
It’s not known why Gallienne sought a pardon, though Canadians with criminal records for serious crimes are barred from travelling to the United States and some other countries.
Gallienne is active in the St. John’s Anglican Church congregation in Ottawa, where he lives, and where his criminal record is widely known. He is active in music programs there, in violation of a ban on such activity imposed by Anglican leaders in the Kingston region. The ban is not binding in Ottawa.
A pardon does not erase a criminal record.
In the case of someone convicted of a sex crime, the record is kept in a separate location but the name is flagged in the Canadian Police Information Centre, a database used by law enforcement.
Details of the conviction would be discovered during a check that takes place if the person applies to work with children, the disabled or other vulnerable people, according to the Parole Board.
Bellefeuille said the board has implemented more stringent investigation and decision-making processes since 2007 for sexual offenders seeking pardons.
“If the person lived in Ottawa, we will check again with the local police of Ottawa but also we will check, even though he never lived let’s say in Gatineau, we will check with Gatineau, so we kind of expanded our geographic search,” he said.
The board also is adding more automated links to law enforcement databases in addition to the Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC).
“We can do a CPIC check, but there’s also other systems that exist that are managed by the RCMP and linked with the police and it’s those types of systems,” he said. “They are law enforcement or investigation systems.”
Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has pledged to overhaul the pardon process to make it more difficult for sex offenders to get pardons.
The promise was made earlier this month in the face of public outrage over the revelation that former junior hockey Graham James, who was convicted of molesting young male players, received a pardon in 2007.
The government failed to follow through on a plan last year to make pardons more expensive.
The Parole Board sought to triple the price of pardon applications from $50 to $150.
The Conservative government did not move ahead with the proposed fee hike, although the Parole Board said it could not afford to continue processing applications for just $50 each.
“It’s something that has been a struggle because with inflation and all the rest ... but at this time we are still at the $50 mark,” Douglas said.
Pardons also can be revoked if courts provide the board with new information about convictions, Bellefeuille said. If a person with a pardon is convicted of a minor crime, the RCMP notifies the Parole Board and it conducts an investigation. A board member decides whether the pardon should be revoked.
Last year, more than 700 pardons were revoked.
More than 400,000 people have received pardons since the program was created in 1970, with more than 15,000 revocations.
The number of pardon applications in Canada has skyrocketed.
The number of applications last year, roughly 35,700, is more than double the number filed five years ago. Last year, the board granted more than 30,300 pardons, including some from a backlog from the previous year.
Bellefeuille said activity by private firms that help broker pardons may explain the surge.
“There’s been a lot of marketing on their part and ... we also have the baby boomers that have retired,” he said. “There’s more and more and they are probably looking at travelling to the U.S. and things like that.”
It’s estimated that nearly 4 million Canadians have a criminal record.
Gallienne was released on bail Thursday. His case is scheduled to he heard in court again April 27.

Notorious child molester John Gallienne charged again

2010-04-14T22:04:00.018-04:00

Pedophile and former Anglican choirmaster and organist John Gallienne, in 2004 in Ottawa with his wife Lannie - photo by Ian MacAlpine

This is certain to open old wounds, to spark anger, resentment, fear and fury. A virtual boogeyman from Kingston's past has reappeared to once again cast a frightening shadow over an entire community. Two decades ago, a revered figure in this historic eastern Ontario city's music and church community was exposed as a ferocious sexual predator. John Gallienne preyed on choirboys, some as young as eight, to feed his relentless pedophilic sexual appetite. He cut a swath through the progeny of some of Kingston's most notable and most literate citizens, parishioners of St. George's Anglican Cathedral, the city's biggest Anglican congregation. Gallienne, who was organist and choirmaster at St. George's for more than a decade and a half, sexually assaulted and exploited the choirboys he led for his entire tenure. Church leaders knew of complaints about his behaviour within a year of his taking the position in 1975. He was not exposed and prosecuted until 1990. And now, Gallienne has been arrested and hauled back to Kingston from Ottawa (my full story from The Whig after the jump), where he fashioned a new life after his release from prison. Kingston Police did not reveal the arrest until I learned of it through sources and pressed them for comment. Police will not confirm my discovery that Gallienne, like former junior hockey coach and sexual predator Graham James, received a pardon. The James case touched off a national outcry.

Gallienne, whose crimes stunned the community and split the church congregation, was arrested Wednesday in Ottawa and brought back to Kingston, Insp. Brian Begbie confirmed.
“It’s a historic case that goes back a number of years,” Begbie said.
Gallienne, now 65, has lived in Ottawa for some time.
He is scheduled to appear in court in Kingston Thursday afternoon, 20 years after he was exposed as a predator who abused more than a dozen young choirboys over a 15-year period.
The new allegation is the result of a complaint to police by a man who did not come forward two decades ago when Gallienne, then the beloved and brilliant organist and choirmaster at St. George’s Cathedral, was prosecuted.
Gallienne is being charged with indecent assault related to abuse of the man between 1980 and 1982, when he was a child.
The newspaper also learned that Gallienne, like former junior hockey coach and sex predator Graham James, received a pardon from the National Parole Board.
“We can’t confirm or deny [that],” Begbie said. “Under freedom of information, people’s criminal records are protected, if they were to have one and if they were to have a pardon.”
The James case provoked a storm of public criticism that a notorious pedophile was able to secure a pardon. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has promised to seek reforms to the pardon process.
“The Prime Minister has asked for explanation on how the National Parole Board can pardon someone who committed such horrific crimes that remain shocking to all Canadians,” Dimitri Soudas, a spokesman for the prime minister said about the James case.
It’s not known when Gallienne received his pardon.
A person convicted of a serious crime must wait until five years after their sentence ends to seek a pardon.
A pardon does not erase a criminal record. In the case of someone convicted of a serious sex crime, the record is kept in a separate location but the name is flagged in the Canadian Police Information Centre, a database used by law enforcement.
Details of the conviction would be discovered by a check that takes place if the person applies to work with children, the disabled or other vulnerable people, according to the National Parole Board.
A pardon can be revoked if a person is convicted of a new crime.
In 1990, Gallienne pleaded guilty to 20 sex crimes against 13 young boys between 1975 and 1990. Two years later, he pleaded guilty to three more sex charges involving another boy.
In 1994, he was convicted of victimizing a choirboy at St. John’s Anglican church in Victoria, B.C. He was choirmaster there in the early 1970s.
He was sentenced to six years in prison. His sentence expired in October 1996, though he was freed from prison on early release in 1994.
Families say two Kingston victims for whom Gallienne was never prosecuted committed suicide.
In 1995, 11 former choirboys and 10 parents shared a $2.1 million settlement that ended a lawsuit against St. George’s Cathedral and the Anglican Diocese of Ontario.
Gallienne preyed on choirboys as young as eight. He abused them at his home, cottage, at the church and on his sailboat. He masturbated them and had them masturbate him. He had oral sex with them and sodomized some of them.
The revelations about his deviance were horrifying for many who knew him and for the community because of the international reputation of the choirs at St. George’s, established in 1892.
The St. George’s congregation has historically been filled with professionals including university professors and Kingston’s most literate citizens. Their children were Gallienne’s prey.
As the scandal unravelled in 1990, it was revealed that church leaders knew of improper conduct by Gallienne as far back as 1976.
Since his release from prison, Gallienne has not kept a low profile. He has been active in the congregation at St. John the Evangelist Anglican Church in Ottawa.
He was leader of the church’s recorder ensemble, according to a report on 2009 activities on the church’s website.
Gallienne also still appears in choir photos on the church website.
In 2004, the Whig-Standard reported that Gallienne was leading choirs and playing the organ at the Ottawa church, in contravention of a lifetime ban (read the original 1994 document outlining the ban) on such activities imposed by a former Anglican leader in Kingston.
He would not answer questions when confronted by a Whig-Standard reporter.
“I’d rather not, thank you very much,” he said, standing next to his wife Lannie Mitchell. “Our time in Kingston was over and done a long time ago. We have a new life up here.” (read the 2004 Whig investigative report)
The bishop in Ottawa reviewed the ban after the newspaper’s report was published and granted Gallienne permission for “limited musical leadership.”
When Gallienne was released from prison, the National Parole Board noted concern that he was a diagnosed pedophile.
“The Board is aware that pedophilia is a life-long sexual orientation,” the board wrote, in a decision. “Your success depends entirely upon your level of motivation to avoid high risk situations, maintain recognition of your offence cycle, and employ appropriate relapse prevention strategies.”

Chronology of events in the Gallienne case:

• Oct. 28, 1989: Dean Grahame Baker and Barry Keefe, the rector's warden, review a letter alleging Gallienne had molested the son of a writer and other boys from the choir
• Nov. 3, 1989: Church officials meet Gallienne to discuss allegations. He says there had been no incidents since one reported to the police and the Children's Aid Society in 1985.
• Nov. 13, 1989: A letter is sent to Gallienne insisting on a system of supervision any time children are involved in practices or performances. He was told not to be alone with children.
• Nov. 17, 1989: Gallienne sends church wardens a letter saying it's his policy to never see children alone
• November to December 1989: Church wardens contact former choristers and parents; approximately 300 had been in the choir since 1975. The wardens are contacted by a number of people suggesting any investigation into Gallienne is inappropriate.
• Jan. 31, 1990: A letter is received from Gallienne's therapist saying he is at the "benign" end of the spectrum and there isn't sufficient risk to justify his dismissal
• Feb. 13, 1990: Church wardens ask Gallienne for his resignation, effective June 30. The church proposes a separation package for Gallienne.
• March 1, 1990: Church parents are called to a meeting to inform of them about current state of affairs and Gallienne's resignation
• March 6, 1990: Following discussions with police, a letter is sent to Gallienne's lawyer advising of Gallienne's dismissal. The offer of severance is rescinded.
• March 7, 1990: The Whig-Standard publishes a story on Gallienne's notice in the church bulletin saying he's leaving the church and Kingston
• Sept. 17, 1990: Gallienne pleads guilty to 20 sex abuse charges involving 13 boys, some as young as eight
• Oct. 2, 1990: Gallienne is sentenced to four and a half years in prison
• 1992: Gallienne pleads guilty to three more charges after a 14th victim speaks to police. Eighteen months are added to his prison sentence.
• 1994: Gallienne is convicted of two more sex charges involving a victim at St. John's Anglican church in Victoria, where he was choirmaster from 1970 to 1974. He receives one year in prison for each charge but his six-year sentence isn't increased.
• 1994: Bishop Peter Mason of the Diocese of Ontario (Kingston) hand-delivers to Gallienne in prison a two-page document that bans him from any involvement in church music programs or positions of leadership in Anglican churches of the diocese. The Ottawa diocese also adopts the ban. Gallienne was paroled from prison later that year.
• 1995: 11 former choirboys and 10 parents share a $2.1-million settlement that ends a lawsuit against the cathedral and the Ontario diocese
• Oct. 2, 1996: Gallienne's sentence expires, meaning he is no longer subject to any supervision or restrictions
• April 14, 2010: Kingston Police arrest Gallienne in Ottawa and charge him with one count of indecent assault related to the sexual assault of a boy between 1980 and 1982

Here is an excerpt from the document that set out a ban imposed by Anglican Church leaders in eastern Ontario in 1994. It barred Gallienne from ever again leading choirs or musical programs or of holding a position of leadership:

Con man Rupert spotted in Ottawa?

2010-04-14T14:24:00.003-04:00

Colleague Don Peat at the Toronto Sun has this update today, April 14, on con man Richard Rupert:

The hunt for an alleged senior-defrauding scumbag wanted by Toronto Police may end in Ottawa.
Detectives on the trail of Richard Earl Rupert told the Sun they are eager to cast a dragnet on the Ottawa area if they can confirm a sighting of him there -- a tip that Crime Stoppers originally hung up on.
Ottawa resident Marie White claims she spotted Rupert at a bar Saturday night -- only to have Crime Stoppers hang up on her when she tried to report the sighting.
Det. Darlene Ross of Toronto Crime Stoppers said Tuesday she was meeting with Alternative Answers, the call centre that takes Crime Stoppers calls, to find out exactly what happened.
Rupert, 54, is wanted on a Canada-wide warrant for eight counts of fraud under $5,000, six counts of theft under $5,000, three counts of attempted fraud, robbery and breaking and entering.
The alleged fraudster first caught Toronto cops' attention after an 81-year-old woman was mugged in November.
In January, cops tied Rupert to several alleged frauds across Canada.
Det. John Dunlop of 32 Division said Tuesday police are still trying to confirm the weekend sighting.
"I'm hoping that is confirmed and we'll be able to intensify our search," he said.
Dunlop said anyone else who spots Rupert should call police, either 911 or Crime Stoppers.
"The information did get forwarded and we are following up," he said.

Predator Richard Rupert a four-decade con man

2010-04-10T11:21:00.003-04:00

Richard Earl Rupert (above) is a remorseless, ruthless predator with no regard for the senior citizens he tricks and swindles. Unbelievably, Rupert has been doing it for nearly four decades, archived parole records reveal. Cancrime recently obtained six years worth of records (available after the jump) for the con man that police across Canada are still hunting. The records disclose his abysmal record of failures on early release from prison after five federal penitentiary terms and they show that he has duped prison and parole authorities in the past into believing that he has remorse for his victims and that he wants to go straight.

The documents above constitute the formal record of four separate parole decisions involving Rupert between 1998 and 2004

The documents show that Rupert has mocked his victims, who could number in the hundreds. He shows no sign of stopping his relentless crime spree.
“We have no question that he’s still active,” Det. Const. Michael Thomas, a Toronto Police officer who is hunting Rupert, said in an interview April 9.
Thomas said they were able to track Rupert to Ottawa, but after that the trail went cold.
Rupert, 54, often shows up at nursing homes masquerading as a long lost relative of a resident. He ingratiates himself, typically by spending hours in conversation, and eventually asks for cash to deal with a minor emergency like a car breakdown (more on his methods in this previous post).
In January this year, Toronto investigators issued a Canada-wide warrant for his arrest, alleging he has bilked at least 20 people, and perhaps dozens more, in cities across Ontario and as far west as Vancouver. Police also released video that shows him assaulting an 81-year-old North York woman he was trying to fleece.
Police have been stymied in efforts to find Rupert.
“He is truly a ghost,” Thomas said, noting that Rupert operates without credit cards, a drivers licence, vehicles or a cell phone – items that would leave a trail.
He travels by bus, often along the Trans-Canada Highway, staying in one city just long enough to victimize a few seniors.
“Sadly, they’re very, very easy targets,” said Thomas, who is still hopeful that a keen-eyed citizen or a victim will provide the tip that will reel in the elusive fraudster.
It’s feared Rupert has left behind a trail of mostly unknown victims in many cities, including Kingston, who are too embarrassed to come forward.
“He targets that one particular group who are very, very insecure and the last thing they want is to be seen as old fools,” Thomas said.
Rupert has been slippery even when he is supposedly under the watchful eye of the corrections and parole systems.
In 1998, just four days after he was granted day parole, a form of early prison release that allowed him to live at a halfway house, he bolted and was not recaptured for more than two and a half years, the parole documents reveal.
He immediately began preying on elderly victims.
He was granted release in 1998 after convincing the parole board that he was ready to turn his life around.
“At the hearing he projected as being sincere and committed to address his unresolved issues,” states a written record of the hearing. “He expresses remorse for his many victims and appears to be accepting responsibility for his offending.”
Authorities now know that Rupert simply returned to his “entrenched criminal lifestyle” nearly as soon as he passed out through the prison gate.
His release came despite acknowledgement by parole board members of Rupert’s “poor compliance rate in his prior conditional releases.”
“In the past he has not expressed any remorse for his actions and apparently laughed at how gullible his victims were,” the 1998 record also stated. “It should be noted that a majority of his victims were elderly during his extensive long term criminal behaviour.”
The last time the parole board reviewed Rupert’s case, in April 2004, it noted that he had “ongoing mental health issues” that required psychiatric intervention.
At the time, he was freed from prison on statutory release, a form of automatic early freedom. The parole board could not order him held behind bars, but it imposed special conditions, including requirements that he submit to psychiatric counselling and take medication.
The records note that he was taking “psychotropic medication.” He also has “significant cognitive deficits including short-term memory loss.”
Rupert’s last sentence, a six-year term for fraud and other property crimes, has since expired so he was not subject to supervision at the time last year when police issued the warrant for his arrest.
Rupert is white, five foot six inches tall, 140 to 160 pounds, with short, dirty blond-gray hair and a receding hairline.
He has a reddish complexion, with chiselled cheekbones, hazel eyes and is usually clean-shaven.
Anyone with information can call Toronto Police at 416-808-3200 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-TIPS (8477), online at 222tips.com, or text TOR and your message to CRIMES (274637).

Accused killer colonel begins hunger strike in jail

2010-04-07T17:19:00.006-04:00

Alleged multiple murderer Col. Russ Williams (inset) has been taken off 24-hour suicide watch in jail, just days after he tried to kill himself and at the same time that he began a hunger strike (full story in the Whig and after the jump). The former Trenton air base commander attempted suicide early Saturday morning (previous post) by jamming a cardboard toilet tissue tube down his throat. He was quickly rescued by staff at the Quinte Detention Centre in Napanee, the provincial facility where he’s been incarcerated since his arrest in early February for two murders and two sexual assaults.

Williams, 47, wrote a suicide note in mustard on the wall of his segregation unit cell, stating that his affairs were in order and that his feelings were too much to bear.
After the incident, Williams was assessed by a psychiatrist who concluded that he is not suicidal in the classic sense, but rather that he simply wants to die, sources have told the newspaper.
For this reason, the onerous around-the-clock surveillance and restrictions in place since the weekend were eased Tuesday.
Williams is now permitted to wear clothes during the daytime. At night, his clothes are taken and he is forced to wear an anti-suicide gown, an armless, smock-like outfit that cannot be torn or burned.
He was wearing the smock around the clock after the suicide attempt.
The removal of the stringent suicide watch is likely a cost-saving measure, says a former Quinte correctional officer.
“It’s costly for them to do that,” said Lee Currie, who left the jail four years ago and who now lives in Alberta. Currie was the vice president of the union representing staff at Quinte.
He said they fought constant battles over staffing issues and management decisions based on saving money.
Currie, who is still in regular contact with staff at Quinte, said the decision to move Williams off the 24-hour suicide watch was likely the result of pressure from senior management.
“That’s pretty quick ... you’re taking a risk,” he said.
Currie said he warned management when he was at Quinte that there was a major security flaw in one segregation unit cell that would allow an inmate to more easily commit suicide.
It’s unclear if the problem was repaired. Williams is not in that cell, but could be moved to the cell if another more urgent suicide-watch case arose.
Williams is currently housed in the only one of 12 segregation cells with an open, barred front that allows staff to easily watch the occupant.
“They’ll keep him in that open cell as long as they can,” Currie said.
Williams stopped eating on Tuesday also, although he has not made any demands related to the hunger strike.
Provincial Corrections officials will not discuss Williams’ case.
“Privacy legislation prevents us from disclosing health care information about individual inmates in our custody,” said Stuart McGetrick, a Toronto spokesman for the Ministry of Correctional Services.
McGetrick said he could speak only generally about policy for dealing with inmate hunger strikes.
He said when an offender stops eating and/or drinking, he is monitored closely.
“We can’t compel an inmate to consume food or fluids,” he said.
If an inmate becomes weak or incapacitated because of a hunger strike, medical care will be provided, including the possibility of transferring the prisoner to an outside hospital.
“If an inmate required medical attention, they would receive it,” he said.
Williams is charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of air force flight attendant Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, 37, and Jessica Lloyd, 27, of Belleville.
He also is charged with home-invasion sex attacks on two women in the Tweed area in September 2009.
He was arrested Feb. 7 and has been at Quinte since.
His next court appearance, by video link, is scheduled for April 29.

How the accused killer colonel tricked jail authorities

2010-04-05T19:46:00.006-04:00

"We don't know what he's plotting next."

That's what a source inside the Quinte Detention Centre told me today, speaking of Col. Russ Williams, the former Air Force commander accused of two murders, who attempted suicide on the Easter weekend. After the jump, exclusive new information (in my latest newspaper report) on extraordinary precautions in place to prevent Williams from killing himself and revelations about how he fooled jail authorities.

Williams was able to make an elaborate suicide attempt in jail because he tricked staff into believing that his mental state had stabilized, sources have told me.

Williams, 47, the former commander of Canadian Forces Base Trenton, was taken off strict suicide watch at Quinte Detention Centre in Napanee in recent weeks because his behaviour seemed rational and compliant.

He was speaking reservedly to some staff, and he was being polite and respectful. He was often seen reading in his cell.

Because of his conduct, Williams was permitted to wear regular clothes, receive standard meals and was not being watched by security staff around-the-clock.

Authorities now believe he spent considerable time plotting to kill himself.

Early Saturday morning of the Easter weekend, he jammed cardboard and foil-like drink powder packaging into the lock mechanism of his cell door, then pushed a toilet tissue tube filled with more cardboard and foil down his throat in an apparent bid to choke himself to death.

He wrote a suicide note on the wall of his cell in mustard squeezed from packets provided with meals.

Staff were able to quickly open the cell door and rescue Williams before he had seriously injured himself.

Extraordinary security measures have now been imposed and are likely to remain in place for the duration of his stay at Quinte, a small jail just west of Kingston, Ontario and roughly 200 kilometres east of Toronto.

Williams is shackled in leg irons and handcuffs every time he leaves his cell, even for showers. He has been stripped of his regular clothing and forced to wear a smock-like anti-suicide gown made from a quilted fabric that cannot be burned, torn or twisted.

The wearer cannot tear off pieces to fashion a noose.

He also is subject to constant surveillance by a staffer posted directly outside his segregation unit cell, where he is housed next to Dean Brown, the 18-year-old man charged with shooting a Belleville area woman and her 14-year-old daughter to death last month.

Sources at Quinte say Williams, who is still receiving regular visits from his wife each week, is now considered a dangerous, conniving prisoner whose conduct is unpredictable.

When he is taken to the jail's visiting unit, movement of all other prisoners at Quinte is halted.

Williams is being strip searched daily and his cell is searched each day. He has virtually no contact with other inmates, except those he can see and hear in the segregation unit.

Hamed Shafia, a 19-year-old Montreal man accused of murdering four family members in a purported honour killing in Kingston last year, is housed in a cell near Williams. Shafia's two co-accused, his mother and father, are housed in other sections of the jail.

There has been other unusual conduct from Williams since his arrest in early February.

He has been writing in a diary in what appears to be code. The writings are seen by staff who search his cell. The code appears between sentences he writes about the mundane affairs of daily life in a jail.

The suicide message he left noted that his affairs were now in order and that his feelings were too much to bear.

When Williams first arrived at the cramped Napanee facility, he behaved as if he were a prisoner of war, refusing to provide anything except name, rank and serial number.

Despite the extreme precautions that have been taken, authorities remain concerned that Williams, who is extremely intelligent and resourceful, will find other means to try to end his life.

Inmates have attempted suicide by standing on the stainless steel sink in their cells and diving headfirst onto the floor of a cell.

Inmates also have been known to bang their heads on the sink or stainless steel toilet in a bid to injure or kill themselves.

Michael Edelson, the Ottawa lawyer representing Williams, will not answer questions about the suicide attempt or the latest precautions.

“I’m not making any comment about the case,” he said today.

Williams is charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of air force flight attendant Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, 37, and Jessica Lloyd, 27, of Belleville.

He also is charged with home-invasion sex attacks on two women in the Tweed area in September 2009.

Accused killer Col. Russ Williams attempts suicide

2010-04-04T10:52:00.008-04:00

Col. Russ Williams, the former Canadian Air Force commander who is an accused serial sex killer, made an elaborate and desperate bid to kill himself this weekend, Cancrime has learned. At roughly 5 a.m. yesterday, Williams wrote a suicide note in mustard on the wall of his segregation cell at the Quinte Detention Centre in Napanee, Ontario, where he has been held since his arrest February 7. Williams wrote a farewell message, saying that his affairs are now in order and that his guilt is too much to bear. Aware that he is being closely watched, Williams jammed the lock in his cell door with cardboard and foil in an attempt to prevent staff from getting into his cell quickly to stop him. He then took a cardboard toilet roll and stuffed it with more foil and cardboard and tried to jam it down his own throat, in an apparent bid to suffocate himself. Staff were able to break into the cell and rescue Williams. Concerned that Williams won't survive until his next court appearance April 29, jail managers made the decision to put him on a 24-hour, one-on-one suicide watch for the duration of his term at the facility. It means he will be monitored around the clock by one staff member. Williams had rehearsed for his early morning Saturday suicide attempt. Early Friday morning, he jammed a pencil into the lock of his cell door to test how long it would take staff to unjam the door. Quinte maintenance staff arrived and opened the door within 15 minutes.

Williams has been on various forms of suicide watch since he was arrested two months ago and charged with two murders and other sex crimes. He exhibited strange behaviour on admission to Quinte and, because of concerns about his mental health, he has sometimes been forced to wear a suicide-proof gown or smock, known as a 'baby doll.'

Williams is accused of killing Jessica Lloyd of Belleville and Marie-France Comeau, who worked at Canadian Forces Base Trenton, where Williams was commander until his arrest. He's also accused of two home invasion-sex assaults on two women in the Tweed area in September 2009. Williams has a house in the Tweed area.

» All of Cancrime's coverage of the Williams case

Ontario top cop salaries revealed

2010-03-31T14:44:00.012-04:00

The Ontario government took the wraps off public sector salaries today, under the province's Sunshine Law. It requires most agencies and government departments to reveal the pay of employees who pocketed $100,000 or more in the past year.

Above is a sample of some of Ontario's top paid police bosses.

Top row, from left: OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino, Toronto Chief William Blair.
Middle row, from left: Niagara Chief Wendy Southall, Ottawa Chief Vern White.
Bottom row, from left: York regional Chief Armand La Barge, Durham Chief Mike Ewles.

All of the public sector salaries are at this site. Municipal police salaries are in the Municipalities and Services section, while OPP salaries appear in the Ministries section.

Some police salaries going public for first time

2010-03-31T00:21:00.000-04:00

Police in Kingston, Ontario, like every force in Canada, are used to providing disclosure – the legally required act of turning over to an accused crook all relevant evidence gathered in an investigation leading to charges. But for the first time ever, the department in this eastern Ontario city is making a different kind of disclosure today.

Police in Kingston are disclosing this year, for the first time, the salaries of all employees who made more than $100,000 in 2009, under Ontario's so-called Sunshine Law. It requires publicly funded bodies, including local governments, to annually reveal the pay of top earners. The figures will be available here at this government website today. Kingston coppers dodged disclosure on a technicality, since the law came into effect in 1996. Although municipal officers are paid with tax dollars collected by the City of Kingston – and Kingston has always been required to disclose its salaries – the coppers technically worked for the Police Services Board, a civilian oversight body. But agencies like police services are compelled to reveal their $100,000 salary club members if they get more than $1 million in government grants. Kingston Police hit that threshold for the first time in 2009, so the force has to release its top earner list. Of course, the real fun comes in comparing salary hikes from year to year, and Kingston won't be in that game until the following year. Some big earners in 2008 were Toronto Chief William Blair (above) who pocketed $299,861.11 in salary. Ottawa chief Vern White's 2008 salary was $219,464.98. Some other big-ticket chiefs:

William Murray Faulkner, London: $200,269.37
Michael David Ewles, Durham region: $214,666.25
Wayne Frechette, Barrie: $179,239.20

All of the plus-$100,000 police salaries disclosed for 2008 are at this site.

"Demonic" killer Patrice Mailloux asks for freedom

2010-03-29T12:26:00.006-04:00

UPDATE MARCH 30: Mailloux was denied any form of early release.

A "demonic" killer who has repeatedly reoffended on early releases from prison was scheduled to go before the National Parole Board again today, begging for release. Patrice Mailloux (inset) shot a 16-year-old girl in the head during a convenience store robbery in Moncton, New Brunswick, in 1987. Mailloux has claimed that the gun went off accidentally, killing Laura Ann Davis. The parole board expressed doubts about his story. Mailloux was on day parole at the time of the murder. Internal records of three previous parole decisions in his case – available in full after the jump – reveal that Mailloux has a disturbing diagnosis that renders him a frightening criminal.

Mailloux was diagnosed in 2004 as having an antisocial personality disorder (page 8 in parole records above). This means he has a virtually untreatable mental disorder that indicates a degree of psychopathy, though he may not necessarily be a full-blown psychopath – a remorseless narcissist who has no regard for the feelings of others and has no conscience. Experts can't agree on this stuff, which makes it that much more frightening. It leaves the average person unsure just what they're saying, except that Mailloux is dangerous. We just don't know how dangerous. His record of failures, lies and deception at least show that it's hard to imagine trusting him. In 2007, he admitted setting up an illegal cigarette-selling network so he could get cash to buy gifts for a girlfriend. At the time, he'd been on a program of unescorted passes that allowed him to leave prison. The passes were cancelled. Authorities also believed Mailloux was planning to bolt.

Mailloux has a criminal record that stretches to 1971 and involves violent robberies, thefts and an attempted prison breach in 1993. There are other convictions for violent crimes including assault with a weapon. The parole records also reveal he has a "severe drug addiction."

'Rage to kill became uncontrollable'

2010-03-27T16:27:00.010-04:00

from left, rapist-murderer James Giff (learning to be a chef in prison), victim Heather Fraser and his intended victim, Annette Rogers

There is a question James Giff has refused to answer publicly for a quarter of a century.
Why?
Why did he rape and stab to death a 16-year-old girl he did not know?
“It was rage, it had nothing to do with Heather,” says Giff, sitting in a bland, bathroom-sized interview room at minimum-security Pittsburgh Institution on Hwy. 15 in Kingston.
It’s the first time Giff, who did not testify at his trial, has spoken publicly about the murder he committed when he was 17.
A shaggy-haired teen has become a pudgy, middle-aged prisoner.

Heather Fraser was a star Grade 11 student at Smiths Falls District Collegiate when she bumped into Giff, while walking home from school, on a bitterly cold January evening in 1985.
Giff forced Heather into a snow-covered park, raped her, stabbed her twice and fled. The mortally wounded girl crawled more than 600 feet on her hands and knees through nearly two-foot deep snow, toward the lights of a nearby street.
She scraped her knuckles raw but did not make it to the street.
Her father found her lying in the snow, soaked in her own blood and barely conscious, about two hours after Giff stabbed her. She died later in hospital.
Giff was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.
He has been on a silent, forced march toward redemption since.
“I didn’t even want to do this interview with you,” says the diminutive 42 year old with piercing blue eyes.
Giff has never spoken to a reporter.
Through the window of the ground-floor prison room, other inmates are visible sweeping a laneway. Some are walking casually, unguarded, between buildings of the fence-less complex.
Giff has been left alone here with his interviewer, free to leave the building when he chooses.
It is the kind of place where a man can see and smell freedom that remains just beyond his grasp.
For most of the interview, Giff seems guarded. He is so focused on his mission to review years of allegations and statements used against him that he does not allow time for spontaneous remarks.
Occasionally, he seems to go off his script.
“It’s hard, especially when you have a rape charge over your head, the bullshit that I have to do, day after day,” he says.
He complains about the routine of prison life. If an inmate is not working, sleeping or eating, he is working out.
The paunchy prisoner clearly is not a fitness buff.
“When I’m not working, I’m not what you call a real people person,” he says. “I don’t socialize much. I don’t get mixed up in institutional politics.”
The day he killed Heather Fraser, Giff says he was tortured by substance abuse, sleep deprivation, thoughts of abandonment and rage.
“I was up all day drinking at my aunt’s,” he says. “I didn’t sleep ... I had some valiums.”
He was filled with a growing rage toward his 17-year-old girlfriend, Annette Rogers, with whom he had a sometimes violent and dysfunctional relationship.
“They were all the makings of what they would call the perfect storm,” he says. “It all came to a head this day and my rage, I was totally focused on all the negative things that had happened between me and Annette.”
He had threatened to kill Rogers.
“That day, the rage to kill became uncontrollable,” he says, without emotion.
“Annette was the intended victim. Heather Fraser was an innocent victim.”
Giff has been through years of treatment and counselling designed to unravel the mystery of his deviant thinking.
“It wasn’t Heather I was attacking, but an image, it’s what psychologists call misplaced aggression,” he says.
It is a sophisticated assessment from a high school dropout who went to prison with few skills and little education.
He does not repeat the more damning assessment from other experts who have studied him: That he is a sexual sadist who takes pleasure from inflicting harm and terrorizing women.
Giff admitted, during a treatment program, that he mutilated Heather’s genitals with his knife because she was not screaming enough during the attack and did not seem as terrified as he imagined in his deviant fantasies.
“I admitted to that because if I didn’t, I would have been there taking that program over and over and over,” Giff says, repeating the claim he made to the National Parole Board last year that he lied in the group session because he felt pressured to exaggerate the brutality of his actions.
Giff portrays himself a good candidate for parole.
“If there’s any man who deserves to be in jail for what he did, it’s me,” he says. “That day, I was a psycho. I had no remorse, no compassion for nobody. I didn’t even care about my own life — but I’m different now.”
Despite serving more time behind bars than most killers, his prospects for release don’t appear good.
Giff has appeared before the parole board twice, last year and in 2007, asking for unescorted passes that would allow him short trips out of prison, on his own (read the parole reports).
He was denied both times, despite his record of successful escorted passes to Kingston. He leaves prison almost daily, he says.
Last year, the board said there’s a risk he’ll commit new sex crimes and his credibility in explaining some details of the murder is questionable.
Prison staff have supported his parole bids.
Giff believes there is one other significant obstacle to his release. Rogers, the former girlfriend who has admitted helping him elude capture in the days after the crime, has made it her mission to see that he stays locked up.
“I think that at the end of the day, the parole board is listening to what Annette is saying and it’s easy to say no,” Giff says.
This is why, he claims, he has broken his silence after so many years.
Rogers has written a slew of victim impact statements and has appeared at Giff’s parole hearings. She has begged the board not to release him. She says he has repeatedly threatened to kill her and she fears he is still a risk to her and her family.
Rogers has told the board that Giff threatened, shortly after his conviction, that he would wait for his chance to kill her once he was released.
She said he made a detailed threat to tie her to a tree, torture her and kill her family.
“These are vicious lies made up by Annette,” Giff says.
He has written to the Crown attorney in Perth, complaining that false statements are being used against him at parole hearings.
“The Crown attorney is taking my thing seriously,” Giff says.
He doesn’t want to leave the impression he is attacking his former partner.
“This is not a vendetta, on my part, against Annette,” he says.
He has a stack of documents, including copies of the impact statements Rogers submitted to the parole board. Many pages are covered with multiple shades of highlighting and during the two-hour interview he eagerly points to passages he believes are troublesome.
A simple, gold wedding band on Giff’s left hand is his only noticeable jewelry.
He wants unescorted passes so he can visit his wife in Kingston, among other things.
“Every day I think about, ‘How did my life become such a mess?’ ” he says, in apparent introspection.
Giff says he tried to extend an olive branch to Rogers in 2004, because he thought that’s what the parole board wanted him to do.
He wrote a letter to her.
“I don’t hate you or hold any animosity towards you; I certainly don’t wish to harm you, your loved ones or anyone else,” Giff wrote.
The letter did not reach Rogers, who was horrified when she was contacted by authorities who told her that Giff wanted to communicate with her (read the letter).
Giff has made other gestures of penitence.
He did not apply for a faint hope hearing that would have allowed him to plead for earlier parole eligibility (read his letter to his lawyer).
“I don’t want to put anyone, especially Mr. Fraser ... through what he went through in the first trial,” Giff says.
Giff pleaded not guilty, forcing the family to endure a painful recitation of the terrible facts of their child’s death.
Partway through the trial, Giff admitted to the rape and murder.
He acknowledged that he did it because he could see that a conviction loomed and he hoped for a more lenient sentence.
“Less time or I figured it would have been second degree instead of first degree so I knew I was going down,” he says.
Now Giff has found God.
He has converted to Islam, he says. He has done well in a cooking program that is teaching him to be a chef, but he is still dogged by Rogers’ claims that he beat her during their tumultuous relationship, which has been presented as evidence of his distorted views of women.
“There was no beating,” Giff says. “There was never any abuse between Annette and I until I came out of the jail and she betrayed me.”
The statement is puzzling, given his admission that on at least one occasion, he threatened to kill Rogers.
“The word kill was after she was bugging me,” he says. “I said, ‘Get away from me or I’m going to kill you.’ ”
He waves a finger in the air, re-creating the moment he tried to dismiss and silence her.
“That’s when she took off because she knew I was very mad,” Giff continues.
He acknowledges that her submissions to the parole board leave the impression she is genuinely afraid of him.
“It’s not my place to say she’s not afraid,” he says.
He insists that no one has any reason to fear him now.
“I know that I have no intention of harming anyone ever again,” he says.
Giff was eligible to seek full parole on March 2. He could request a hearing at any time.

» Full story of the Heather Fraser murder

Political outrage over Olson pension is a sham

2010-03-25T22:26:00.011-04:00

Columnist Peter Worthington elicited anger with this column that documented the pension payments that imprisoned serial child killer Clifford Olson (above) receives.

Once a sufficient tide of public outrage had bubbled to the surface, Prime Minster Stephen Harper, ever the opportunist, chimed in with his pledge to "rectify" the situation. Harper added this ludicrous assertion, paraphrased in a CTV story:

Harper said it's uncommon for a senior citizen to be serving a life sentence for heinous crimes, which is likely why the issue hasn't arisen in the past.

Is the PM playing dumb or is he really this misinformed about Canada's prison population? This month alone, four senior citizen federal convicts died of natural causes at a treatment centre inside the walls of maximum-security Kingston Penitentiary. These were guys serving lengthy sentences for serious crimes including sex offences – perhaps they'd even be labelled heinous, by some assessments. They likely all were receiving federal pension payments. The latest figures compiled by Corrections Canada show that as of April 2009, there were 732 senior convicts behind bars who were 60 or older (you can collect Canada Pension at 60 and OAS at 65). Nearly 150 of those cons are 70 and older. There were another 1,053 federal offenders on supervised release in the community who are 60 and older, again, who might all be pocketing federal pensions. Here's the full chart of inmate demographics from the latest Corrections and Conditional Release Statistical Overview:

It seems remarkable that politicians and citizens would express outrage that unsavoury Canadians are leeching off hard-working taxpayers. More than 10 years ago, I wrote this story about a fugitive priest, wanted on sex crimes in Kingston, Ontario. He absconded to South Africa, where he was collecting pension payments. Authorities said they were powerless to stop him, and unable to bring him back to Canada to face charges:

The Kingston Whig-Standard
Saturday, June 26, 1999

By Rob Tripp

A fugitive former Kingston priest accused of molesting altar boys is pocketing two federal pensions while living in exile abroad, where he is evading prosecution, The Whig-Standard has learned.
Federal authorities, including the Mounties, say there's nothing they can do to stop Father Paul Vincent Hughes from collecting the taxpayer-supported payments, which are being sent to South Africa.
"It's two separate matters," said John Cooke, a supervisor in the Toronto office that investigates abuse of the federal pension programs. "I cannot stop him. I would be violating his rights."
Hughes was arrested by Kingston Police in August 1995 and released without depositing any bail money. He disappeared within days of being freed. A warrant for his arrest was issued Oct. 5, 1995.
Court documents list seven charges against him involving three male victims that allegedly took place in the early 1970s, while Hughes was a priest at St. Joseph's church in Kingston.
Hughes, 67, is collecting money through two programs, the Canada Pension Plan and the Old Age Security plan. The money is being sent to a post office box in South Africa, said a Canada Pension Plan spokesman.
"He's receiving both benefits," said Lionel Sinanan. Sinanan would not say how much Hughes is collecting and would not reveal the specific address. The maximum combined amount anyone can receive is roughly $1,160 a month, although it's unlikely Hughes is pocketing the maximum.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigated the issue in March this year.
"His pension can be sent out of Canada," said Sgt. Mark Pearson, at the Kingston RCMP office. "There's no offence, no fraud has taken place."
Cooke said a legitimate recipient of either of the two pension programs can have the money sent anywhere they want, whether or not they are living at that address.
"[Recipients] can live anywhere in the world," said Cooke, who is team leader of program integrity for Human Resources Development Canada.
Pearson said the Mounties passed on the information they gathered to Kingston Police.
Sgt. Rick Carter, who is still in charge of the Hughes investigation, said the information did not make it to him. Carter said he didn't know that Hughes was receiving federal pension benefits at a South African address, until told by a Whig reporter on Thursday.
"I'll have to go to the Crown to see where we go from here," Carter said.
Police suspected in 1995 that Hughes fled to South Africa, where he was ordained in the 1950s, but weren't sure.
It's believed Hughes came to Canada in 1969.
Carter said he checked in 1995, and was told that it would be impossible to get Hughes sent back from South Africa. Canada does not have an extradition treaty with the country.
Carter said he's not sure if he can get access to Hughes' personal information held by the pension officials.
"We don't have access to Canada Pension Plan records," Carter said.
Roman Catholic Church officials in Kingston refuse to answer questions about Hughes' status, but issued a terse news release after being told that Hughes has a South African mailing address.
"The Archdiocese of Kingston has had absolutely no knowledge of, or contact with, Father Paul Hughes since the date of his arrest," the church says, in a statement issued by lawyer Monica Heine. "The Archdiocese does not know, and has never known, Father Hughes' whereabouts since that date."

As far as I know, nothing was ever done about Hughes pension payments.

» Read the internal record of Olson's 2006 parole hearing
» Olson's known victims

Amber Alert rescues boys kidnapped in Kingston

2010-03-23T07:45:00.010-04:00

The first ever Amber Alert by police in Kingston, Ontario, quickly accomplished its goal. Within hours, two young boys, aged 5 and 3, were rescued after they had been abducted from a Children's Aid Society office in Kingston on March 22. Police say a citizen recognized the car that was the subject of the alert and called 911. York Regional Police pulled over the car early yesterday afternoon and found the boys. My complete story from today's Whig-Standard (after the jump) explains that the kids were snatched during a supervised visit at the society's main office site. The father of the boys, Richard Armstrong, 45, (inset), is facing charges. Amber Alert is a warning system that quickly spreads word about a child or children in danger through abduction.

The Children’s Aid Society is defending its security after a man having a supervised access visit with his children abducted them from the agency’s Montreal Street offices.
“Unfortunately something went wrong,” said Yvonne Cooper, communications co-ordinator for the society. “I don’t know specifically what happened.”
Police say a CAS worker was threatened with mace.
Kingston Police issued their first ever Amber Alert after two boys, Jack Armstrong, 5, and his brother Christian, 3, were taken from the Montreal Street offices of the Frontenac County Children’s Aid Society at 9:30 a.m.
The alert, which employs a provincial notification system, swiftly spread word of the abduction to news agencies, police and other organizations across the province.
The children were found safe, about 200 kilometres west of Kingston just over six hours later when provincial police pulled over a car in the Toronto area, near Markham Road and Highway 7.
The father of the boys, Richard Armstrong, 45, was taken into custody.
Cooper said the society was providing services to the family and a supervised access visit was taking place. Two staff members were involved.
“We’ve got security in the building but you never know what is going to happen,” she said. “You just really never know so we take every precaution that we possibly can to make sure that our staff and our families and our children are looked after, that they are safe.”
“So we’re confident that that’s what happened in this circumstance.”
She said the situation would be reviewed.
“It doesn’t necessarily mean that, you know, this didn’t work, our security’s not good or anything like that,” Cooper said. “What it means is that, we had a circumstance that we have to look at to see what we can do to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.”
Guidelines for issuing Amber Alerts provide that there must be concern that a child is in danger.
“We use Amber Alert any time we feel that there is any jeopardy or danger for the children,” said Sgt. Steve Montpetit, the OPP officer based in Orillia who co-ordinates the program. “Whether it’s a parent abduction or a non parental, just a family friend or even an unknown, we utilize the Amber Alert for those.”
Montpetit said the system was reviewed last year, in an effort to simplify the process, but it is still used infrequently. He estimated that there have been four alerts issued since last October.
He said police can contact his office about issuing an alert in any abduction involving a child when they have information either on the child, the abductor or the vehicle. Authorities only need to have information on any one of those three elements to secure an alert.
Montpetit had quickly notified provincial police in Quebec about the Kingston case, out of concern that the father might drive to a Montreal area airport.
“The information we [had was] we think the father is trying to get back to Saskatchewan,” Montpetit said, in an interview before the children were found. “He might try to do that through the Toronto airport, he might travel to Montreal and try to do it through Dorval or Laval airports so we don’t know.”
Police said the father had come from Saskatchewan for the supervised visit.
Cooper would not say where the children live or where they were born, citing confidentiality.
She said that supervised visits take place in a room that is monitored by video camera and through a window from which staff can watch.
She said someone was watching this visit but she couldn’t say what happened when the parent began to leave with the children.
“I don’t know because I’m not sure specifically at what point in the visit it happened,” she said. Cooper said staff would have tried to intervene.
“I don’t know specifically what transpired there, but there was obviously, they knew something was wrong and this wasn’t going the way it was supposed to, so our staff did what they could and called the police as well,” she said.
She said police arrived very quickly.
Cooper said commissionaires are on duty at the society’s office building, which it shares with the City of Kingston. It has a number of alarmed emergency exits, she noted.
“We do not have armed security staff at our building,” she said.
Armstrong is six foot five inches tall and weighs 260 pounds, according to information provided by police.
“Our executive director is going to call all the necessary people in together to review the situation, review the circumstances and see what worked and see if we can answer any questions,” Cooper said.

'Not very skilful' ex-con is foot shooter

2010-03-18T05:33:00.005-04:00

Police were pretty helpful yesterday when it came to details of a home invasion robbery in Napanee, a small town just west of Kingston, Ontario. After putting out the news release that I highlighted in this previous post, they soon put out another release that included the names of the three accused robbers. That gave me enough to put together this story (after jump) that appears in today's Kingston Whig-Standard.

An ex-convict guilty in the past of what a judge called “pretty stupid activity” is believed to have shot himself in the foot during his getaway from a home invasion robbery he’s accused of committing.
Earl C. McCorrister, 36, is one of three suspects quickly caught after three armed men burst into a Napanee home Wednesday night and robbed a man and woman in the house.
The robbery happened just after 8:30 p.m. at a home on Golf Course Lane.
A 26-year-old man in the home suffered minor injuries. Another occupant, a 29-year-old woman, was not hurt.
The robbers fled but police arrived swiftly and caught the bandits not far away, on County Road 8.
“They were in a Ford Ranger pickup truck,” said Sgt. Vic Welton, of the OPP. He could not say if the suspects were pursued and then apprehended.
Police found a rifle and a shotgun in the vehicle and discovered that one of the three suspects had a gunshot wound to the foot, Welton said. Police emphasized that the injury happened before officers arrived.
McCorrister was in Kingston General Hospital yesterday, still recovering from a non-life threatening injury. A justice of the peace was expected to visit him at his hospital bed.
“He’ll be remanded in hospital, provided he can understand what the justice of the peace is saying,” Welton said.
McCorrister has a lengthy criminal record and was in a Kingston courtroom in April last year, when he was sentenced to a year in jail for breaking into a Hwy. 15 gas bar and violating probation.
He smashed the window of the gas bar kiosk after walking into the view of a surveillance camera. McCorrister still had a sweatshirt that was visible on the tape when police questioned him.
“This is pretty stupid activity,” Justice Judith Beaman said, during sentencing.
“The fact that the accused is not very skilful in his criminal activities is not to his credit,” prosecutor Priscillia Christie noted.
McCorrister has convictions dating back more than 10 years in the Kingston area.
In 2002, while he was on day parole and living at a halfway house on Portsmouth Avenue, he escaped. At the time, he was completing a federal sentence for violent crimes including armed robbery.
McCorrister and Lewis Carroll, 28, and Kenneth Ratte, 43, both of Kingston, are charged with assault with a weapon, using a firearm while committing an offence and break and enter with intent related to the home invasion.
Ratte and Carroll were scheduled to appear in court in Napanee yesterday on the charges related to the home invasion.
Police say the suspects were known to the occupants of the house.

Home invasion bandit shoots himself in foot - literally

2010-03-17T10:05:00.004-04:00

Sometimes the cops don't have to shoot the bad guys. They shoot themselves. Check out this news release today from provincial police in eastern Ontario, written with understatement, but enough detail to make clear that good guys got a good laugh at the expense of the crooks.

Napanee OPP Arrest Three In Home Invasion Robbery

(Napanee, ON.) Officers with the Napanee Detachment of the Ontario Provincial Police have arrested three males in connection with a home invasion in the Napanee area.

At approximately 8:45 pm on March 16, 2010 the OPP responded to a report of a home invasion robbery at a home on Golf Course Lane in Napanee. Three suspects were arrested without incident near the scene.

One of the male suspects was given immediate medical attention for an apparent self-inflicted, accidental gun shot injury to his foot. The injury is not considered life-threatening and had occurred before police arrived in the area. The residents of the home were not injured.

The investigation has found the suspects were known to the residents of the home.

The Eastern Region and Napanee OPP Crime Units and officers of the Napanee Detachment continue to investigate the incident.

- 30 -

Contact: Provincial Constable Rob Prophet

Community Service Officer

Grenville County

Prescott Detachment

Note that the sly coppers wanted to make clear they didn't shoot the bad guy in the foot, emphasizing in the release that the freakish foot wound happened before they arrived.

Police release buyer's price guide for street drugs

2010-03-13T17:07:00.001-05:00

What's an 8-ball of crack cocaine fetch on the street in Toronto these days? Or how about a gram of marijuana? What about a pound of heroin? The Mounties have the answers. Provincial police released this RCMP price list (above) this week, a guidebook to the cost of illicit dope in the Toronto area. The list shows, for example, that methadone and heroin are among the priciest street drugs, worth roughly $100,000 per kilogram.

Col. Russ Williams graduates to modified suicide watch

2010-03-11T22:09:00.008-05:00

Col. Russ Williams has now been placed on a "modified suicide watch" at the Quinte Detention Centre in Napanee, sources tell me. There have been concerns about the accused killer's mental health since he was thrown behind bars in early February (see earlier post about his strange behaviour on admission). At first, Williams was on an around-the-clock suicide watch but those restrictions were eased. The modified suicide watch means he gets clothes during the day but at night, all of his clothes, including his undies, are stripped off and he's stuffed into a quilted anti-suicide smock that is tear and burn proof. The smock has no sleeves and a hole where his head pops out. Because of the strange design and material, it's sometimes described, quaintly, as an 'oven mitt' or 'baby doll.' The smock prevents a suicidal inmate from tearing off strips of material that can be used to fashion a noose or garotte. The concerns about Williams' state of mind aren't surprising, considering this is a man who was a revered leader in his field, accustomed to deferential treatment and near servitude from those around him. Now he's confined to a concrete box, watched constantly and in mortal danger from fellow convicts because of his notoriety and his alleged crimes.

(the photo above, published in July 2009 in the CFB Trenton newspaper, Contact, shows Williams surveying his troops on the day he took command of the Trenton airbase.)

Col. Russ Williams mysteriously absent from jail

2010-03-09T19:52:00.014-05:00

Accused sex killer Col. Russ Williams (inset) was mysteriously absent recently for roughly a day and a half from the eastern Ontario detention centre where's he's being held, Cancrime has learned. Sources tell me that Ontario Provincial Police officers took Williams out of the Quinte Detention Centre in Napanee (located about 30 kilometres east of Kingston) last Thursday and for half of Friday. Police have not made any public statement about Williams' secretive jaunts from jail, where he's being held on two charges of first-degree murder and charges of sexual assault related to two home invasions in which women were bound and assaulted.

When an accused perpetrator wants to cut a deal with investigators, or simply co-operate with an investigation, it's not unusual for the accused person to be spirited out of jail and taken to a crime scene(s). It's typically done secretively, since investigators don't want media watching the macabre events unfold. Police will often ask an accused killer who confesses or provides detailed, incriminating information about a killing, to re-enact the crime, or at least walk investigators through the circumstances. That was done famously in one of Canada's most notorious murders, the 1977 killing of Emanuel Jaques, a 12-year-old boy who endured sexual torture at the hands of three deviants before he was drowned in a sink and then buried under garbage on the rooftop of a building that housed a seedy Yonge Street body rub parlour. One of the killers, Saul Betesh, went to the building with police and re-enacted the torture and murder of the child. Williams remember, has apparently given what the Globe and Mail said was a "lengthy and wide-ranging statement" to investigators and also took them to the body of one of his alleged victims, Jessica Lloyd. Williams also is charged with killing Corporal Marie-France Comeau, who was a military flight attendant at Canadian Forces Base Trenton, the airbase where Williams was commander, until his arrest Feb. 7.

After Col. Williams was arrested and charged with the murders of the two women, and sex attacks on two others, police made it clear they would investigate whether he can be linked to any other unsolved, similar crimes. Could his sojourn from jail indicate that he's willingly linking himself to other crimes? Williams now has a top notch criminal defence lawyer, Michael Edelson, representing him. Williams remains in segregation at the detention centre.

3 months set for canal mass murder trial

2010-03-04T06:57:00.000-05:00

The trial of three Montrealers accused of killing four family members is expected to start in April 2011 and likely will run for three months. The details were discussed in a Kingston, Ontario, courtroom Wednesday, at a hearing where the accused trio are trying to get a communication ban lifted that bars them from talking to three children in Montreal and each other (the hearing didn't finish and will continue in May). Ottawa judge Mr. Justice Robert Maranger will preside over the Kingston trial of the mother, father and son from Afghanistan who are accused of a diabolical conspiracy to murder three teenage sisters in the family and a 50-year-old woman who was the accused father's first wife. Some relatives have alleged it was an honour killing, orchestrated by the father. The victims were found in a submerged car in a Kingston canal on June 30 last year. Exclusive photos of the accused leaving the Kingston courthouse yesterday appear in a slideshow above. After the jump, my complete story from today's Whig-Standard.

A complex and lurid murder trial likely will begin in Kingston in 13 months and could last more than three months.
The date for the Kingston Mills case was tentatively set yesterday by the judge who will preside over the case after discussions with five lawyers.
At the conclusion of a second day of a hearing related to the case, Mr. Justice Robert Maranger asked the lawyers about time needed and their availability.
“2010 isn’t going to work for me [but in] 2011 the court is available as soon as counsel are available to get the trial started,” he said, speaking to the lawyers in the main courtroom at the county courthouse.
The lawyers agreed that roughly four weeks would be needed to hear pre-trial motions.
“I think that is being very generous,” said Crown prosecutor Gerard Laarhuis.
Maranger said he would block off the month of October for those hearings, beginning Oct. 4. They could involve issues such as defence motions to prevent some material from being used at trial.
Maranger revealed the scope of the case when he said that it’s likely that 750 citizens will have to be summoned to the courthouse to allow the selection of 12 impartial jurors. Picking the jury could take four days.
“I think there’ll be a special jury selection for this,” he said. “It’s going to be a mega panel.”
Tooba Mohammad Yahya, 40, her husband, Mohammad Shafia, 56, and their son, Hamed, 19, are each charged with four counts of first-degree murder and four counts of conspiracy to commit murder.
Jury selection could be held in the last week of March, he said, setting the stage for the trial to begin in April. It is projected to last 12 to 15 weeks.
The discussions about logistics capped a full day of testimony from a woman from Montreal who gave evidence alternately in English and sometimes in French, through a translator. As she has done often during hearings in the case, the accused mother began to sob during some of the testimony. She spent considerable time wiping at her face with tissues.
Her evidence is part of hearing called because the three accused are seeking to have a court order lifted that bars them from communicating with three family members in Montreal and with each other. The family members are children of the accused mother and father and siblings of the accused 19 year old. A publication ban prevents the reporting of evidence at the hearing.
The lawyers agreed to continue the hearing in May, at the same time that a pre-trial meeting is held, at which the lawyers and judges will meet to discuss means to streamline and expedite the process.
Maranger left no doubt that he’s handling the case. On Tuesday, he said he expected that he’d be assigned to the trial.
“I am seized with this,” he said yesterday. “I am going to be the trial judge.”
For the second day in a row, a court-appointed interpreter was not available to translate between English and Farsi, the Middle Eastern language spoken by the accused mother and father. Instead, an interpreter hired by the defence sat in the prisoner’s box between them and translated the English evidence.
Three teenage Shafia sisters, Zainab, 19, Sahari, 17, and Geeti, 13, along with Rona Amir Mohammad, 50, were found dead inside a submerged car discovered June 30 in the Rideau Canal at Kingston Mills. Rona Mohammad was Shafia’s first wife.

Ottawa judge likely to preside at canal murder trial

2010-03-03T07:32:00.000-05:00

A bilingual Ottawa judge who is handling a high-profile immigration case involving a 30-year-old terrorist bombing will preside over a sensational Kingston murder trial that will unfold in at least three languages. During discussions yesterday as part of a hearing in the Kingston Mills canal murder case, Mr. Justice Robert Maranger revealed that he likely would be the trial judge.

“There’s a very good chance I am,” Maranger told the lawyers. “I think I am. There’s a really, really good chance I am.”
The issue came up as defence lawyer Peter Kemp was asking Maranger about scheduling pre-trial motion hearings and setting aside time for a trial. Kemp said he hopes that the pre-trial issues can be handled in May and June so that a trial could begin in October or November and conclude by Christmas.
Maranger was taken aback by the timeline Kemp was outlining.
“I didn’t realize this was on such a fast track,” he said.
Maranger noted that he is still busy with the Ottawa case in which France is seeking to extradite a former Carleton University professor, Hassan Diab. The French government claims Diab is responsible for a terrorist bombing in Paris in 1980 that killed four people and injured 40 others. A radical Palestinian group is blamed for the bombing.
Yesterday Maranger was on the bench in the cavernous second-floor courtroom of Kingston’s county courthouse (above) where three members of the Shafia family will be tried for murder.
Tooba Mohammad Yahya, 40, her husband, Mohammad Shafia, 56, and their son, Hamed, 19, are each charged with four counts of first-degree murder and four counts of conspiracy to commit murder.
The accused mother and father walked, with leg shackles clinking, into the glass-encircled prisoner’s box in the centre of the courtroom. Hamed Shafia was seated at the side of the courtroom.
The hearing was convened because the three accused are seeking to have a court order lifted that bars them from communicating with three children in Montreal and with each other.
Like the preliminary hearing that concluded last week, a broad publication ban prohibits the reporting of most of what transpires during the hearing.
At the beginning of the proceeding, a lawyer representing an agency from Montreal sought to have a Whig-Standard reporter (me) turfed from the courtroom because of privacy concerns regarding evidence. The judge rejected her request and a man who works for the agency was called to testify.
Translation issues arose even before the hearing began.
“We have a little bit of a logistical problem,” Maranger said, at the beginning of the day. “We’re short one interpreter.”
It was explained that the court-appointed interpreter who was supposed to appear to translate between English and Farsi, the Middle Eastern language spoken by the accused mother and father, had a last-minute medical emergency; he was at the hospital with his wife who had gone into labour.
The lawyers agreed that a translator hired by the defence lawyers would substitute. He was seated in the prisoner box between the man and woman so that he could translate the evidence.
A woman also stood next to the witness, translating between English and French.
The witness, who appeared last week at the preliminary hearing, spent five hours on the witness stand.
Crown lawyer Laurie Lacelle told the judge, when he interrupted her questioning just after 4:30 p.m. to ask how much longer she would be, that she needed several more hours.
The lawyers realized that they might not be able to complete the hearing because the witness is not available to come back to Kingston today and defence lawyer Peter Kemp is not available on Thursday.
Another witness is expected to appear when the hearing resumes today.
Several times yesterday, the accused mother began to weep softly during the testimony. At one point, she held tissues over her nose and mouth for several minutes.
Three teenage Shafia sisters, Zainab, 19, Sahari, 17, and Geeti, 13, along with Rona Amir Mohammad, 50, were found dead inside a submerged car discovered June 30 in the Rideau Canal at Kingston Mills. Rona Mohammad was Shafia’s first wife.