Sentencing delayed as man supports spouse at Cormier trial

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This article was published 02/02/2018 (3090 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg man who faces jail time for his failure to testify in court during a murder trial has been given a temporary reprieve while he supports his common-law spouse during another, much more high-profile murder trial.

Claude Asselin, 51, was convicted last week of contempt of court because he didn’t show up to testify during a murder trial last fall.

Asselin lived in a Langside Street rooming house where another resident, 68-year-old Brian O’Donnell, was stabbed to death in June 2013.

Asselin was set to be sentenced Thursday, but the judge decided to delay imposing the sentence after learning Asselin has been supporting his common-law spouse, Tina Duck, during the ongoing second-degree murder trial for the man accused of killing her 15-year-old daughter, Tina Fontaine.

Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Chris Martin expressed his sympathies to Duck, who was present with Asselin in court Thursday morning, just moments before accused killer Raymond Cormier’s trial was set to begin for the day.

Martin said he didn’t want to “yank” Asselin away from Duck if he was supporting her during Cormier’s trial, and delayed imposing Asselin’s sentence until April.

Crown attorney Paul Cooper is seeking a one-year jail sentence for Asselin, while defence lawyer Frank Coniglio asked for 60 days, minus the 25 days Asselin already spent in police custody after he was arrested for failing to follow through on the subpoena.

Asselin argued he didn’t come to court because he thought his evidence wasn’t important enough and he had received veiled threats and feared for his safety.

In convicting him, Martin said he didn’t believe Asselin’s story about being threatened not to come to court.

“You might want to think, as you’re attending that trial (for Tina Fontaine’s case), what the impact might be if people just decided on their own volition that they didn’t have to show up for that trial because they didn’t think that whatever evidence they had was important or not,” Martin told Asselin on Thursday.

Naomi Shianne Ross was acquitted of second-degree murder in O’Donnell’s death. It’s unknown whether Asselin’s testimony would have made any difference to that outcome.

Coniglio said his client didn’t see the stabbing happen and “basically chased the assailants away,” afterward, but couldn’t identify them. Asselin said he heard the early-morning commotion and saw a man and a woman running from the rooming house.

He apologized in court Thursday and said again he didn’t think what he had to say was important to the case.

“I’m not speculating as to whether your evidence would have made the difference, or would have changed the outcome, but your evidence was, without question, important evidence,” Martin said.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay