Pedophile dies in jail
HALIFAX — Convicted pedophile Donald Duane Bartlett, who was awaiting trial in Halifax on historical sex-related charges involving a girl, has died in a New Brunswick prison.
Bartlett, 51, died of natural causes Tuesday at Dorchester Penitentiary, the Correctional Service of Canada said in a news release.
He was being held in the prison's medium-security section. The correctional service said it will review the circumstances of his death, as it does any time an inmate dies.
Bartlett had a history of sexually assaulting children as young as babies going back 30 years.
Halifax Regional Police issued an advisory about Bartlett in August 2018, when he was released from prison and moved to a halfway house in Dartmouth after serving a sentence for plotting with another man online to sexually abuse children.
Police said he was considered a high risk to reoffend and was subject to a 10-year, long-term supervision order with a number of strict conditions pertaining to children.
Bartlett was arrested in January 2019 and charged with 12 counts each of sexual assault and sexual interference. The offences were allegedly committed against a girl between November 1986 and December 1992 in Dartmouth, as well as in Hants and Cape Breton counties.
He was denied bail in Dartmouth provincial court in February 2019 and pleaded not guilty to the charges last August in Nova Scotia Supreme Court. He had been scheduled to have a judgealone trial this October.