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Jason Nassr’s defence of his subsequent legal battle has suffered a serious constitutional setback.
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Jason Nassr’s defence of his subsequent legal battle has suffered a serious constitutional setback.
A Superior Court docket decide determined Tuesday that testimony given two years in the past by the creator of the now-defunct Creeper Hunter TV just isn’t protected by the Constitution of Rights and Freedoms and is admissible at his upcoming trial on a cost of intimidating a justice system participant.
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That’s as a result of what he stated within the witness field types the premise for the legal cost.
Nassr, 44, of Windsor was convicted of harassment by telecommunications, extortion and producing and distributing baby pornography by written phrase in February 2023 following a marathon trial that delved deeply into his actions as a self-styled vigilante who used questionable ways to establish folks he stated have been baby predators.
Nassr would pose as younger grownup girls on grownup relationship websites, then, after catfishing somebody, would transfer the conversations to textual content messages and reveal “she” was really a 12- or 13-year-old lady.
Extremely sexualized conversations and typically an invite to satisfy in particular person would comply with. These rendezvous would finish with Nassr displaying up with a digicam and a confronting the goal. These conferences – and there have been 100 episodes – would then be revealed on his web site with the goal’s identify, age and hometown.
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Some episodes resulted in police investigations after Nassr’s viewers contacted authorities, and Nassr was typically known as upon for data.
However the suicide of a 49-year-old London-area man, confronted on the telephone by Nassr 10 months after he didn’t present as much as a deliberate assembly, prompted a police probe of Nassr’s ways.
The investigation unearthed an unlimited quantity of knowledge and writings throughout a search of Nassr’s condo that met the definition of kid pornography.
On the finish of a jury trial that took years to get off the bottom – largely due to Nassr’s lack of ability to maintain a lawyer and his infinite authorized arguments – he was discovered responsible of the harassment, extortion and baby porn expenses. He received a two-year conditional sentence that included 18 months of home arrest.
Whereas he appeals these convictions, Nassr nonetheless faces a cost stemming from his conduct whereas testifying on the lengthy, typically contentious Superior Court docket trial.
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In March 2023, Nassr was charged with a uncommon rely of intimidating a justice system participant for a remark he made throughout a heated change whereas below cross-examination.
Justice James Stribopoulos, who’s presiding on the three-day judge-alone trial set for this summer time, heard pre-trial Constitution arguments this 12 months the place Nassr contended his earlier testimony ought to be inadmissible at his subsequent trial due to Constitution protections – and that might have ended the prosecution as a result of the remark types your entire foundation of the cost.
Nassr had chosen to testify and amid his cross-examination, his lawyer was excused due to a breakdown within the solicitor-client relationship. It was after the lawyer had withdrawn that Justice Alissa Mitchell cautioned Nassr “to not name into query the bona fides of the prosecutor or how he had behaved or carried out the case.”
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Whereas he was being questioned, it was urged to Nassr that he loved posing as a teenage lady and fascinating in “soiled discuss” with grownup males. The change between Nassr and the prosecution grew to become heated.
Then Nassr stated out loud, within the presence of the jury, that he knew the identify of one of many prosecutor’s younger relations.
The jury was excused and Mitchell instructed Nassr “to not point out something private in regards to the prosecutor, to keep up civility and to not elevate his voice,” Stribopoulos stated in his choice Tuesday.
“She additionally reminded him that she might discover him in contempt if he did not comply with her instructions,” he added. The trial continued and Nassr was by no means present in contempt by the decide.
However a month after the jury’s responsible verdicts, Nassr was charged for saying the identify of the younger particular person. “The Crown alleges that by doing this, Mr. Nassr meant to impress the state of concern on the prosecutor and impede him from performing his duties.”
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Nassr argued Part 13 of the Constitution ought to make his trial testimony inadmissible as a result of it protects witnesses who give incriminating proof at one continuing from having that very same testimony used in opposition to them at one other – besides in circumstances of perjury or giving contradictory proof. In different phrases, it ensures immunity from prosecution for self-incrimination.
However that safety is for witnesses who describe occasions that occurred beforehand and who can’t then be confronted with having that testimony used in opposition to them, Stribopoulos stated.
“It doesn’t afford safety to an accused whose prior testimony ‘types the very substance of the offence with which the accused is now charged,’” he stated, quoting from appeals courtroom precedents.
To make use of the Constitution as Nassr urged “would grant each witness the immunity to commit offences whereas testifying, successfully remodeling Part 13 of the Constitution from a protect to a sword that witnesses might wield with relative impunity,” Stribopoulos stated.
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“The discount on the coronary heart of Part 13,” he stated, is that if a witness testifies in truth, the state can’t flip round and use the proof in opposition to them.
“A discount that enabled witnesses to commit crimes whereas on the witness stand with impunity could be totally unconscionable,” Stribopoulos stated.
Nassr’s defence lawyer, Ingrid Grant, had additionally argued that alleged offences dedicated throughout testimony may very well be dealt via contempt citations. Stribopoulos stated he was “hard-pressed to grasp” how, if Part 13 protects witness’s testimony from subsequent use, that very same testimony may very well be the inspiration of a contempt discovering.
Additionally, “when the witness can be the accused, there could also be compelling causes for a trial decide to chorus from resorting to the contempt energy, particularly in jury trials,” Stribopoulos stated.
A decide deciding to not use a contempt quotation “hardly looks like a legitimate motive to excuse a witness from no accountability or crimes they commit whereas testifying,” he stated.
Nassr heads to trial Aug. 11.
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