Man convicted for refusing to testify in rooming house murder trial

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/01/2018 (3102 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg man could face jail time after he ignored a court order to testify in a murder trial that ended with a not-guilty verdict.

The jury that acquitted Naomi Shianne Ross of second-degree murder last September didn’t hear evidence that placed her at the scene of a fatal stabbing in a Langside Street rooming house in June 2013. A former resident of that rooming house, 51-year-old Claude Joseph Bruno Raynald Asselin, didn’t appear as a witness despite being ordered to do so.

Asselin admitted he didn’t follow through on a subpoena that compelled him to testify during Ross’s murder trial. He claimed he received veiled threats about coming to court and said he feared for his safety, but Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Chris Martin didn’t believe him.

Asselin was living in the suite directly above stabbing victim Brian O’Donnell’s room at 375 Langside Street on June 30, 2013. When he testified Monday during his contempt-of-court hearing, Asselin said he’d heard a commotion in the building early that morning and looked down from the second floor to see what was happening on the main floor, where 68-year-old O’Donnell lived.

He said he saw “a guy and a girl outside” leaving the scene.

Asselin also said the middle name listed on his subpoena was wrong, as was the phone number and suite number that were purported to belong to him. He said he felt as though his evidence wouldn’t matter to the court because he didn’t see the stabbing happen. When he testified for a 2016 preliminary inquiry, he said, his time on the witness stand was brief.

Asselin claimed he received vague threats in the months leading up to the trial from two different people on two different occasions who confronted him as he walked out of the rooming house, warning him against going to court.

“I didn’t feel important at all so, like I said, for my own safety, just did not go. I figured the court did not really need me at that point, but I guess that was my bad,” Asselin said.

“I did not see anything. It was just the aftermath. I heard the commotion, and after I seen two people outside going in two different directions. That’s it, I didn’t see nothing else except blood in the place.”

The judge convicted Asselin on Monday of contempt of court, saying: “Clearly, it’s not up to a witness to determine whether their evidence is important or not.”

As for Asselin’s concern for his own safety, the judge said “quite frankly, I simply don’t believe it.”

Asselin had exchanged emails with a Crown attorney and a member of the Winnipeg Police Service telling them he was not coming to court. He claimed he was going on vacation or could not afford to miss work by coming to court, but didn’t mention anything about being threatened outside the rooming house.

On the stand Monday, he said he was scared to mention the real reason he didn’t want to come to court was that he had been threatened.

A warrant for his arrest was issued and Asselin was taken into custody on Sept. 16, 2017 — after Ross’s trial was over.

Ross was 18 years old when she was charged with second-degree murder in O’Donnell’s death. She was arrested at a home on Furby Street shortly after the stabbing and had some of O’Donnell’s blood on her shirt. Witnesses said she showed up there with a large, bloody knife and said she “stabbed a guy.”

Ross’s defence lawyer, Amanda Sansregret, told the jury police arrested the wrong person. While the knife was “suspicious,” it didn’t prove Ross killed O’Donnell, she argued.

“The fatal flaw (in the Crown’s case) is that no one testified to anything that puts Miss Ross in 375 Langside, stabbing Mr. O’Donnell,” Sansregret said during her closing arguments to the jurors, who ultimately acquitted Ross.

Asselin is set to be sentenced next week. Crown attorney Paul Cooper indicated in court he expects to seek a one-year sentence.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay