Crown drops Ottawa murder case for fear of wrongful convictions
Author of the article:
Gary Dimmock
A file photo of signage near the courthouse on Elgin Street in Ottawa. Photo by Wayne Cuddington /Postmedia
The Ottawa police homicide unit has lost a murder case after detectives propped up a broke, mentally-ill crack addict as a star eyewitness only for him to admit on the stand that he actually has no memory of ever seeing either of the accused at the scene.
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The explosive testimony was revealed in a stunning cross-examination piloted by top defence lawyer Solomon Friedman on June 25.
Friedman handily dismantled the police narrative and had their star witness, under oath, unravel all the lies — the ones the so-called witness told from the start to the 911 operator, right to the end in an interview room with seasoned Det. Guy Seguin.
Friedman didn’t even get to finish his master-class in cross-examination because he had already left the police narrative, along with the credibility of the force’s star witness, in tatters only halfway through — so much so that Tim Wightman, the assistant Crown attorney assigned to adopt and prosecute the flawed police case, stood up and ordered that Michael Leduc, the accused killer, be immediately released on bail in light of what the prosecutor called a “shocking development.”
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The prosecutor wanted the weekend to talk to management about the police case and on the morning of June 28, Wightman told court that the Ottawa Crown Attorney’s Office was abandoning the second-degree murder cases against Michael Leduc, 45, and Robert Theoret, 60.
The murder prosecution was abandoned for fear of wrongful convictions.
The so-called star witness — Kevin Albert, 50 — first told police that he wasn’t even at his Vanier home when his roommate Gaetan Jolin, 55, was beaten to death on Feb. 20, 2019. He even concocted a story about where he was — right down to times, location and details about what he had for lunch at the shelter (spicy tomato soup).
Albert was a compulsive liar at the time — a shameful part of his life, he told court — and would do or say just about anything if it benefitted him, particularly when it came to scoring his next hit of crack.
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Albert ended up giving three statements to detectives across three days after the Feb. 20, 2019 killing. He went from not being home to a star eyewitness after Det. Guy Seguin dangled the benefits of the witness protection program.
The offer of a new, expenses-paid life in witness protection came at a time when Albert said he was one layer under rock-bottom. He was smoking crack while on medication for a small grocery-list of mental illnesses — including borderline personality disorder, which made him try to please people, even police investigating another Vanier homicide.
Albert testified that he would say or do anything for his next hit of crack and said his constant lies were a shameful part of his life but he was in “survival mode.” He testified as the star witness in June, saying he suffers from PTSD and sometimes freezes in time and experiences a disassociated state in the face of violence, where he was floating and looking down at himself — like the day of the killing, he told court.
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He told so many lies back then he testified that he no longer knew fact from fiction. Some of the lies he told had no benefit to him and he just made it up as he went, court heard.
Albert is now in the witness-protection program even though his testimony not only failed to secure convictions but rather collapsed the prosecution under an intense cross-examination by Friedman.
Albert testified that he wanted to put all his lies behind him and finally tell the truth because he wanted no part in wrongfully condemning two men to prison.
Under cross-examination, Albert, who now lives under a new identity, agreed that he may have invented the scenes in his confused, mentally-ill, crack-addicted mind. In fact, he told the court that he has no actual memory of events in question.
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Friedman, who represented Leduc alongside Vanessa Garcia, said his client has consistently maintained his innocence and “knew the truth would come out at trial.”
Friedman noted that Canada’s criminal justice system has a sad history of wrongful convictions “perpetuated by unbelievable and mistaken eye-witnesses, including those who testify in exchange for inducements and incentives.”
He added that Wightman, the assistant Crown attorney, did the right thing by ending a prosecution “that had been exposed as unreliable and untenable.”
Leduc spent more than two years in jail awaiting trial and is now free and looking forward to rebuilding his life, Friedman said.
Theoret, Leduc’s co-accused, was also cleared of a second-degree murder charge in light of the shocking star witness testimony.
His defence lawyer, Kirstin Macrae, said the Crown made the “right decision” by staying the charges.
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