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Client found not guilty of Sexual Assault and Sexual Exploitation after four-day trial in the Ontario Court of Justice, Brampton.\u00a0 J.\u00a0 J.K. was accused of inappropriately massaging his stepdaughter on three occasions when she was 17 years of age.\u00a0 The complainant attended police after an argument with J.K. and J.K. was charged.\u00a0 Joseph Neuberger of Neuberger & Partners LLP, Toronto Criminal Lawyers, was retained. \u00a0The complainant provided a statement to police that was video recorded, and her boyfriend provided a statement that at the time of the third alleged massage, the complainant called her and was asking to come to his home, thus supporting her feeling of being uncomfortable and scared. The complainant also had a diary that she allegedly was chronicling the instances of sexual assault.\u00a0 The argument just prior to the complainant going to police was about J.K. having read her diary and confronting her about the contents.\u00a0 He had thrown the diary away and the complainant was extremely angry that he invaded her privacy and threw the diary away.\u00a0 The complainant alleged three instances of inappropriate touching.\u00a0 J.K. was notified to turn himself in and contrary to advice from his then counsel, he provided a video recorded statement that was voluntary.\u00a0 The Crown\u2019s case was premised on the statement of the complainant that was admitted into trial evidence under section 715.1 of the Criminal Code because she was under 18 at the time of providing the statement, many aspects of J.K.\u2019s statement that were odd and in the Crown\u2019s theory provided corroborative evidence of the complainant\u2019s version of events, including an admission.\u00a0 It was a strong prosecution case.\u00a0 Joseph Neuberger and Diana Davison had in-depth detailed meetings with the client, his wife and sourced independent evidence that during the year the complainant stated that the three instances occurred she was under the care of a therapist and a chiropractor for back issues.\u00a0 The complainant and J.K. both agreed that they had a bonded loving relationship since she was two years of age. He was always supportive, caring and provided well for the family.\u00a0 At age 11, the complainant wanted to start competitive skiing, and J.K. enrolled her in lessons and a team. He attended her practices, took her skiing, and attended most if not all her competitions.\u00a0 He was a very good stepfather.\u00a0 Things according to the complainant changed when she turned 17 and his massages became \u201cweird\u201d and \u201cinappropriate\u201d.\u00a0 The defence narrative, which was supported through cross-examination of the complainant, was that the complainant suffered from chronic muscle and back issues due to competitive skiing.\u00a0 J.K. had experience with therapeutic massages and from age 11 gave her massages to help her pain and muscle cramps. In cross-examination the complainant eventually confirmed that these massages were about three to four per season, sometimes in the summer and were extremely helpful.\u00a0 Further, he had taken her to a sports clinic to help with her injuries.\u00a0 In addition, during many of the massages the two would talk about personal issues that troubled the complainant related to her biological father and other dynamics in her life. She agreed in cross-examination that the massages were a bridge to a form of talk therapy that was very constructive and helpful to her.\u00a0 Thus, only when she turned 17, after she stopped skiing competitively, did she allege three instances when he grazed her vagina, and touched her breasts.\u00a0 He was also alleged to have used some inappropriate language.\u00a0 In cross-examination of the complainant, after extensive questioning, the complainant admitted that when she was 17 there was considerable tension at the home due to her boyfriend and her group of friends. She eventually admitted to using marijuana, mood changes, losing weight and issues with school.\u00a0 This caused tension with J.K. as he had high expectations of her and wanted her to succeed in university.\u00a0 J.K. used these massages at the time to talk to her about these issues. The complainant was challenged on her not disclosing any of these issues including a major blow up about her wanting to quite her job at their cottage so she could be in the city to be with her boyfriend. The complainant admitted that both the mother and J.K. were very upset and this caused more tension during the summer. Toward the end of the summer and the last alleged incident of sexual touching, the complainant was expressing concerns about a family trip and her moving out west for a gap year to go skiing work to be away from bad influences.\u00a0 The aspects of this issue and the disagreement with J.K. was also never mentioned in her statement to police.\u00a0 \u00a0J.K. testified that in fact when discussing her reluctance to go out west for the year, he was giving her a massage to relieve her tension and to try and talk about the issues however, things soured, and a bad argument occurred with J.K. giving her an ultimatum to stop seeing her boyfriend and that she must go out west.\u00a0 Shortly after this argument and the confrontation about the diary, the complainant went to police.\u00a0 J.K. testified that he made a mistake looking at her diary but what he read made no sense and he read the diary to see what was going on in her life.\u00a0 He confronted her about certain contents in her diary that caused him great concern.\u00a0 This only exacerbated their tension, and he threw away the diary in anger, not to destroy inculpatory evidence. \u00a0\u00a0There were other significant issues raised in cross-examination, but at the end of the trial, Joseph Neuberger and Diana Davison drafted detailed writing closing submissions dealing with the statement of the complainant, inconsistencies, the throwing away of the diary and the statement given by J.K.\u00a0 The defence also put forth a multifaceted motive to fabricate including that the complainant\u2019s social life as under attack.\u00a0 The judge carefully considered all the evidence, and in the end found that there were compelling aspects to the motive to fabricate and the inconsistencies and lack of disclosing the tensions and arguments with J.K. significantly detracted from the complainant\u2019s credibility and reliability.\u00a0 J.K. was found not guilty of both sexual abuse charges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","success_category":[118,119],"class_list":["post-30036","success_story","type-success_story","status-publish","hentry","success_category-all-success-stories","success_category-sexual-assault-domestic-assault-and-other-violent-crimes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nrlawyers.com\/6ixDev-v2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/success_story\/30036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nrlawyers.com\/6ixDev-v2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/success_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nrlawyers.com\/6ixDev-v2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/success_story"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nrlawyers.com\/6ixDev-v2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"success_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nrlawyers.com\/6ixDev-v2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/success_category?post=30036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}