Winnipeg-born Deanna Durbin gets her due on DVD

Convicted harasser accused of targeting old, new victims, including judge

Agnieszka Ciochon-Newton, who was sentenced to six years in prison for mercilessly harassing two people she believed had wronged her, as well as other crimes, wasted no time when her sentence ended to launch fresh attacks on victims new and old, including the judge who convicted her, court documents allege.

The 58-year-old former nurse was arrested last month after Winnipeg police “became aware that (Ciochon-Newton) was engaging in aggressive and harassing behaviours again, starting almost immediately upon the expiry of her parole conditions” on May 13, Det. Sgt Kylie Case wrote in search warrant documents obtained by the Free Press.

Ciochon-Newton is charged with seven counts of criminal harassment, two counts of uttering threats and one count each of fraud, breaking and entering, attempting to obstruct justice, intimidation of a justice official, mischief and defamatory libel. She remains in custody.

Search warrant documents say provincial court Judge Keith Eyrikson learned in late August that Ciochon-Newton had emailed CBC Manitoba days earlier and threatened him.

Police, street groups looking to extend co-ordinated outreach-first approach to drug-use, trafficking crackdown

Winnipeg police and street outreach groups are discussing how to extend an initiative that tries to link people with addictions and homelessness services, while targeting open drug use and dealing.

Chief says minister offered money to remove highway checkstop

The chief of the Bloodvein River First Nation says a Manitoba cabinet minister offered up to $250,000 for economic development as he was trying to persuade her to remove a highway checkstop that has outraged hunters.

Chief Lisa Young said Ian Bushie, the minister of Indigenous futures, raised the money in a private conversation in September, also telling her the First Nation would receive a letter directing it to move the checkstop because it’s on a provincial highway.

Young said Bushie described the money as support for economic development in the community.

“I really felt like I was being pushed into a corner. I also felt that I was being bribed,” Young said in an interview. “It may not have come off that way. But he even further said, ‘And I’m not bribing you.’ So, I really didn’t know what to say.”

High-risk sex offender charged with Osborne Village apartment break-ins

A convicted, high-risk sex offender has been arrested for allegedly breaking into several Osborne Village apartments last month, court records show.

Winnipeg Police Service property crime investigators were alerted to the series of break-ins in September.

Investigators learned that three break-and-enters occurred Sept. 13-14 at apartments on the 200 block of Stradbrook Avenue; a suspect got inside via a window.

In two of the break-ins, police said, the suspect fled after encountering the residents inside their homes. Nothing was stolen and no one was hurt in any of the incidents.

Storm costs not factored in to MPI request for 2.38% rate increase

Manitoba Public Insurance told the Public Utilities Board Tuesday it didn’t factor in reinsurance costs related to devastating summer storms in its application for an increase to vehicle insurance rates.

Cara Low, the Crown corporation’s chief actuary, told the board that given MPI anticipates an increase to reinsurance premiums, the 2.38 per cent increase listed in its application won’t be adequate to cover its costs.

“There’s going to be a significant increase. We still have to decide how much we want to retain, what we want the coverage to look like, and what the upper end needs to be,” she said on the opening day of a three-week hearing.

Nearly 41,000 claims have been submitted in relation to summer storms that swept across southern Manitoba from June to August. Floods, tornadoes and hail pummelled several communities and forced MPI to open satellite claims centres to deal with the record number of calls.