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Client found not guilty of three counts of Sexual Assault, two counts of Domestic Assault, and three counts of Threaten Death, after a seven-day trial by Zoom in the Superior Court, Newmarket. K.Y. had a religious marriage with the complainant. They were not civilly married. Over the course of the first year of their relationship, arguments emerged about how K.Y. was not willing to have a civil marriage to create a legal marriage in Ontario. In addition, numerous arguments occurred regarding financial expectations of the complainant. After about 16 months of the relationship, the complainant attended the hospital after an extensive verbal argument about the demise of their relationship. The complainant attended the hospital due to falling on the ice but when there had disclosed to a nurse that she was subjected to abuse over the entire relationship with K.Y, and ultimately K.Y. was charged with multiple offences related to domestic abuse including sex assault. Joseph Neuberger, Neuberger & Partners LLP, Toronto Criminal Lawyers, was retained to defend K.Y. Joseph Neuberger obtained the disclosure and then had K.Y. retain a family lawyer to work with Joseph. The importance of the correct family lawyer in the divorce case was vital to uncovering the reason for fabrication. There were three separate statements provided by the complainant and a few messages that were disclosed to the defence. After careful analysis of the statements there were a number of important inconsistencies but more importantly a general lack of coherence. Joseph Neuberger worked with the family lawyer on the Reply and the discoveries (in the family law proceedings) that provided a robust source of evidence to cross-examine the complainant on to undermine her credibility. In particular, the complainant had filed several documents in the family court proceedings to attempt to convince the family court that there was a legal marriage in order to seek support payments, division of the assets of K.Y. and other financial remedies. Joseph Neuberger reviewed the documents with the family lawyer, and the documents appeared to be fraudulent. At trial, Joseph Neuberger, filed through a 276/278 motion extensive material including WhatsApp messages spanning the entire relationship, family court documents and other evidence to support the defence. Joseph Neuberger extensively cross-examined the complainant on the documents and was able to establish that the complainant had falsified a marriage licence, marriage certificate, a religious document promising payment from K.Y. of $150,000.00, all of which the Court concluded that the complainant had knowingly participated in providing false documents to establish a legal marriage to allow her to claim significant amounts of money from K.Y. Further, during cross-examination by Joseph Neuberger, there were material inconsistencies established on each charge, not only between the statements and in-court testimony, but also in relation to the preliminary hearing. There were also recordings made by the complainant of several arguments during which threats were made by K.Y. Yet when reviewed carefully, did not amount to threats to cause death. Further, the defence spent considerable time with K.Y. preparing him to testify, and at trial, K.Y. testified and his evidence was accepted by the court. It was very important for K.Y. to testify and tell the truth. At the end of the trial, Joseph Neuberger, drafted a 75-page written closing argument to assist the court with properly applying evidence to avoid myth-based reasoning. Ultimately, the court found that there was insufficient evidence to determine who was telling the truth at trial, but further found that the complainant’s credibility was severely damaged by her involvement in falsifying legal documents. K.Y. was found not guilty of all charges of Sexual Assault, Assault and Threatening.

This case was a rare case where the complainant had gone to the extent of creating legal marriage documents that with careful review by Joseph Neuberger were proved to be false. It was clear in this case that the complainant was willing to fabricate evidence to suit her desire for financial gain. This significantly undermined her credibility and any ability of the court to rely upon her evidence.