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Client found not guilty of Sexual Assault and Assault after a three-day trial in the Ontario Court of Justice, Brampton. D.M. was in an unhappy marriage. Both he and the complainant were thinking about ending the marriage. The complainant had an argument with D.M. and while he was out with a friend, she contacted police and alleged a historical sexual assault and an assault. D.M. was charged. He retained Joseph Neuberger of Neuberger & Partners LLP to defend him. Joseph obtained a complete history and worked with the family lawyer representing D.M. in the matrimonial proceedings. The pleadings showed the complainant filed for divorce days after the arrest of D.M. and asked for an unequal distribution of the matrimonial assets and alleged a history of abuse both verbal and physical. The pleadings outlined significantly more allegations than her sworn police statement. Further, Joseph Neuberger, sent D.M.’s smart phone to an expert to do an extraction of lost messages between the parties including days leading up to the argument and the day of the argument. Through the forensic analysis, relevant messages were obtained that showed the complainant was in fact asking D.M. to not leave the marriage and to work through their differences. However, on the day the complainant contacted police, she accessed his phone and sent herself a message thread D.M. had with another women about going away for the weekend. The message thread appeared that D.M. was starting a relationship with another woman and thus, seemed to be a motive for the complainant to make an allegation due to her anger at D.M. The matter proceeded to a motion under section 276/278 of the Criminal Code to have the messages admitted. The motion was successful. At trial, the complainant was confronted with a series of messages that undermined her story to police, including rebutting that she was the one who wanted to end the marriage. Further, material inconsistencies were raised through cross-examination on her family pleadings. Finally, the forensic evidence demonstrating that she accessed his phone and retrieved D.M.’s message thread with another woman created a strong motive to fabricate. Rather than just admitting that she had accessed his phone and sent the message thread to herself, she denied it. The defence called the expert and had admitted the forensic extraction into evidence. After testimony of D.M. and detailed written submissions, D.M. was found not guilty of both counts of Sexual Assault and Domestic Assault.
P.L. was found not guilty of two counts of Sexual Assault after a three-day trial, Ontario Court of Justice, Newmarket courthouse. He and the complainant were university students who met in class. The two went on several dates and had a wonderful time together. The two dated, and on one evening, P.L. invited the complainant to his place. While at P.L.’s apartment, the complainant and P.L. talked, watched TV and eventually as the evening progressed, the complainant changed into a lingerie. The two engaged in consensual sexual acts. The next day, the complainant messaged P.L. on Instagram and asked P.L. if she could come over to his place. The two of them listened to music and watched movies again. They engaged in consensual sexual acts. The complainant stayed overnight at P.L.’s place. In the morning, the two of them completed university assignments. The complainant asked P.L. if he wanted to meet her mother. P.L. answered that he was not planning to do that. After that, he proceeded to talk on the phone with another female. The complainant got upset and left P.L.’s place. A couple of days later, P.L. broke up with the complainant over social media posts. The complainant sent several messages to P.L. about how angry she was about his posts and told him to take the posts down. P.L. didn’t take the posts down and the complainant attended a police station to provide a statement alleging sexual assault that allegedly occurred on two occasions. P.L. retained Mariya Protsenko of Neuberger & Partners LLP, Toronto Criminal Lawyers. Mariya obtained from the client provide all messages between him and the complainant. Mariya brought a s.276/278 application to have the messages admitted at trial particularly relevant to motive to fabricate and consent. The application was successful. At trial, Mariya cross examined the complainant who admitted that she failed to disclose during her statement key pieces of information that did not fit her narrative of being sexually assaulted. In addition, Mariya established that the complainant misled the police and the Court about having never wanted to attend P.L.’s place the second time. When confronted with the messages, the complainant’s false assertion was exposed significantly undermining her credibility. The complainant made it clear in her evidence at trial that she did not want to attend his apartment the second time. The messages directly contradicted this and refused to explain why she misled the police and the Court. The client testified and provided direct and detailed evidence of their evenings together including consent to sexual activity. Although P.L. handled the relationship poorly including breaking up with the complainant through social media, he was young and not on trial for hurtful conduct but for sex assault. Mariya provided detailed written and oral submissions carefully outlining the series of inconsistencies and frank lies told by the complainant. P.L.’s evidence was organically logical and believable. P.L. was found not guilty of all the charges.
Charges of Luring, Obtaining Sexual Services for Consideration, Invitation to Sexual Touching and Make Child Pornography, withdrawn prior to setting trial dates. D.M. was on an escort website and had made arrangements to meet with a sex worker. Upon arrival he was arrested for the charges noted. He retained Joseph Neuberger, Neuberger & Partners LLP, Toronto Criminal Lawyers, to defend him. These cases are project cases across Ontario. The prosecution case relies on the messaging with the undercover officer. In this case, the messaging was confusing and equivocal as to whether D.M. had both been communicating with someone he knew was under 18 and had in fact entered into a financial transaction for sexual services. D.M. attended 10 sessions of therapy regarding his decision making, and the harms of human trafficking as well as having donated $500.00 to a charity. Joseph Neuberger and Crown Counsel agreed on a resolving by way of a common law peace bond and all charges were withdrawn.
Client found not guilty of Sexual Assault, Sexual Assault Choking, Assault and Breach of Undertaking, after three-day trial, Superior Court, Toronto. I.J. was in a relationship with the complainant for three months before finding out that she was pregnant. The two decided to live together and try and have a traditional relationship to raise their child. The couple did not do well together, and after the birth of their son, the two separated. The complainant did not like I.J.’s lifestyle and was highly insecure that he was cheating on her. After the break-up, the two could not agree on a parenting agreement, and the complainant wanted sole custody of their son. The complainant filed an application in family court, and alleged a history of domestic abuse, including the sexual assault allegations. The two eventually settled on shared parenting but over the next two and half years, the complainant still sought a formal relationship with I.J. and he continued his lifestyle. After the complainant realized I.J. was in a committed relationship with another woman, she demanded that he not introduce the child to anyone he was dating. When the two had a very heated argument wherein I.J. told the complainant that he would introduce their son to anyone he was seriously dating, the complainant attended a police station and gave a statement alleging sex assault allegations and assault. Joseph Neuberger of Neuberger & Partners LLP was retained to defend I.J. Joseph Neuberger obtained the family court record, voice recordings, and copious messages between the complainant and I.J. over the years since the two began dating and carefully drafted a 276/278 Application to admit important messages, recordings and other relevant documents. In addition, the defence sought to introduce other sexual activity evidence that was rooted in many of the messages and recordings that contradicted the complainant’s narrative. The 276/278 Application was ruled admissible, and all evidence and areas of questioning was permitted. At trial, Joseph Neuberger extensively cross-examined the complainant on her narrative and with the use of the defence evidence severely undermined the complainant’s evidence. The complainant was trying to justify her actions as “gaining her voice back” and “taking agency” whereas Joseph Neuberger cross-examined that the complainant had taken steps to eradicate I.J. as the father of their son. In fact, during cross-examination, Joseph Neuberger noted that the complainant has referred to their son as “MY SON” 24 times in her statements to police, and never once referred to the child as “our son”. That type of possessive language is a clear indication of parental alienation. Further, the complainant had I.J. charged with a breach because when she was walking on Queen Street one night in June of 2024, she noticed I.J. in a bar with his girlfriend. She was with their son. There was a court order for no contact. The complainant continued to walk toward the restaurant and stopped in front of where I.J. was sitting. He asked her if it was ok to say hi to their son, and he hugged their son, and she left. She then called police because he spoke to her. He was charged. Joseph Neuberger cross-examined on her actions related to that offence and demonstrated that she intentionally invited a breach and was the type of person who was so self-entitled that the way she views all interactions is through her own lens of entitlement and lack of respect for I.J.’s needs and rights as a parent. At the end of cross-examination, the Crown invited a directed verdict of not guilty.
Rex v. J.S. (2025), client found not guilty of sexual assault after a four-day trial in the Ontario Court of Justice, Newmarket. J.S. was alleged to have sexually assaulted a PSW worker who had just started working with him. Then the complainant returned to work the next day and started a three- and half-year relationship with J.S. After J.S. ended the relationship and refused to pay her spousal support, the complainant attended a police station and gave a statement alleging a historical sexual assault. Joseph Neuberger of Neuberger & Partners LLP, Toronto Criminal Lawyers, was retained to defend J.S. The disclosure consisted of the complainant’s statement. J.S. had been struck by a car in late 2015 and sustained knee and ligament injuries to his right knee and shoulder including a depressed facture to his right knee. He was assigned by the insurance company a PSW to assist with daily activities as he recovered. This PSW was the complainant. She alleged that on the second day she attended his home, he asked her to stay to watch a movie and while sitting on the couch, he started to molest her, grabbed her, and carried her to a bedroom where he pinned her on the bed and sexually assaulted her. Her evidence was that she returned to work and J.S. opened up to her about his troubled marriage and his desire to be with her and have a life with her. The two began an affair and eventually each divorced their respective spouses. Soon after they lived together but had a turbulent relationship with the two breaking up often. Toward the end of the relationship the complainant hired a lawyer and wrote an email to J.S. saying that he sexually assaulted her and wanted compensation and spousal support because they lived together. J.S. refused. J.S. retained his own lawyer and the two commenced litigation. J.S. gained access to her personal files which contained her tax returns. The tax returns demonstrated that she declared herself as single and living at a separate address. Shortly after this came to light in the litigation, she attended the police. Joseph Neuberger obtained her tax returns, the family court litigation documents, and her time sheets from when she worked as a PSW for the client. J.S. advised that she stopped working for him about two months after they started dating. The time sheets clearly demonstrated that the signature on the time sheets changed. It appeared that the complainant continued to issue time sheets for one and half years after they started dating and signed the sheets herself forging his signature. Joseph Neuberger brought a 276/278 application to admit various documents for trial including his own medical records, occupational therapy reports, copious threads of WeChat messages which undermined much of her evidence about the narrative of the relationship and other sexual history evidence relevant to rebutting portions of the complainant’s narrative. The application was successful. Joseph Neuberger had a private investigator photograph and video the area of the house where the complainant alleged the sexual assaulted started and ended in a bedroom. At trial, extensive cross-examination undermined the complainant’s evidence including the mechanics of how the sexual assault occurred. It was impossible that J.S. could have restrained and carried the complainant to a bedroom given her injuries that had yet not healed by the date of the alleged sexual assault. In addition, cross-examination on her litigation pleadings and tax documents demonstrated that the complainant made false statements in her court documents. J.S. testified and was not shaken in cross-examination by the Crown. After submitting detailed written submissions combined with oral submissions, the client was found not guilty of sexual assault.
Charges of Assault and Assault with Choking were withdrawn on the first day of a two-day trial at the Ontario Court of Justice, Oshawa. The Complainant was the ex-girlfriend of N.B. She accused him of two incidents of domestic violence, one leading to her hospitalization with serious facial injuries. Nick Whitfield of Neuberger & Partners LLP, was retained to defend N.B. N.B. vehemently denied the allegations; he claimed they were fabrications to ensure his removal from the apartment he shared with the Complainant. Several months after contacting the police, the Complainant began texting N.B. to seek reconciliation. Portions of the messages indicated her original allegations were inaccurate. Nick Whitfield presented the text messages to the Crown and advised he would be using them at trial. The Crown agreed to have the complainant re-interviewed as a result of the disclosed messages. Nick took the position that the allegations were fabricated. On the eve of trial, the Complainant was re-interviewed and rescinded her allegations. The Crown withdrew all domestic abuse charges, and the parties agreed to a 6-month common law peace bond with a single condition to keep the peace.
Charges of Assault and Assault Bodily Harm withdrawn on day 1 of a two-day trial in the Ontario Court of Justice, Guelph. E.S. and three other individuals became involved in a verbal altercation outside a nightclub on a Saturday evening. They had never met before. The three individuals had been drinking earlier and gradually escalated matters with E.S. by throwing a soft drink plastic bottle in his direction. All four parties then became involved in a physical altercation. E.S., instead of walking away, remained and the fighting escalated to the point where he allegedly caused one of the complainants bodily harm by pushing him into a concrete barrier headfirst. Michael Bury of Neuberger & Partners LLP, Toronto Criminal Lawyers, was retained to defend the charges. Michale Bury engaged in extensive negotiations with the Crown and demonstrated that despite the actions of E.S., the other individuals were similarly at fault by initiating the fight. The Crown agreed to withdraw the charges before the commencement of the trial upon E.S. entering into a common law peacebond which required him not to have any contact with the complainants for 12 months. As a result, E.S. avoided a possible criminal record if found guilty following a trial.
Client found not guilty of Sexual Assault and Sexual Exploitation after four-day trial in the Ontario Court of Justice, Brampton. J. J.K. was accused of inappropriately massaging his stepdaughter on three occasions when she was 17 years of age. The complainant attended police after an argument with J.K. and J.K. was charged. Joseph Neuberger of Neuberger & Partners LLP, Toronto Criminal Lawyers, was retained. The 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. The argument just prior to the complainant going to police was about J.K. having read her diary and confronting her about the contents. He had thrown the diary away and the complainant was extremely angry that he invaded her privacy and threw the diary away. The complainant alleged three instances of inappropriate touching. 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. The Crown’s 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.’s statement that were odd and in the Crown’s theory provided corroborative evidence of the complainant’s version of events, including an admission. It was a strong prosecution case. 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. 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. 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. He was a very good stepfather. Things according to the complainant changed when she turned 17 and his massages became “weird” and “inappropriate”. 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. 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. Further, he had taken her to a sports clinic to help with her injuries. 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. 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. He was also alleged to have used some inappropriate language. 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. This caused tension with J.K. as he had high expectations of her and wanted her to succeed in university. 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. The aspects of this issue and the disagreement with J.K. was also never mentioned in her statement to police. J.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. Shortly after this argument and the confrontation about the diary, the complainant went to police. 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. He confronted her about certain contents in her diary that caused him great concern. This only exacerbated their tension, and he threw away the diary in anger, not to destroy inculpatory evidence. There 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. The defence also put forth a multifaceted motive to fabricate including that the complainant’s social life as under attack. 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’s credibility and reliability. J.K. was found not guilty of both sexual abuse charges.
Charges of Sexual Assault x 2, and Assault x 6 withdrawn prior to setting the matter down for trial, Toronto. R.R. and his wife, the complainant, were in a bitter separation and custody battle. After R.R. filed for divorce, the complainant contacted police, and R.R. was charged with various historical allegations of assault and sexual assault. R.R. retained Joseph Neuberger of Neuberger & Partners LLP to defend him. The complainant provided a statement to police and some messages as evidence of his abusive conduct over the years of their marriage. Joseph Neuberger obtained from R.R. numerous messages, and videos directly relating to arguments that the complainant related to the alleged abuse. R.R. had in fact made various recordings due to his concerns about the complainant’s erratic behavior. Joseph Neuberger compiled a detailed memorandum outlining the weaknesses with the Crown’s case and provided a detailed chart breaking down the video evidence disclosed by the defence refuting several allegations of assault and demonstrating exceptional aggression on the part of the complainant including potential harm of their child. Further, Joseph Neuberger outlined the defence for the Crown. After several discussions and judicial pre-trials, the Crown concluded that there was no reasonable prospect of conviction and if R.R. were to sign a common law peace bond all charges would be withdrawn. Accordingly, the matter was resolved for a common law peace bond and the Sexual Assault and domestic assault charges were withdrawn.
Past results are not necessarily indicative of future results and that the amount recovered and other litigation outcomes will vary according to the facts in individual cases.
