Agent 728 turned down in appeal of assault verdict
A Quebec Superior Court judge has rejected Stéfanie Trudeau’s appeal of a lower court verdict that found the former Montreal police constable, known as Agent 728, guilty of assault last year.
On Wednesday, Superior Court Judge Claude Champagne also rejected Trudeau’s appeal of the sentence she received for the assault. She received a suspended sentence of 12 months of probation and was ordered to carry out 60 hours of community service.
In September, she managed to have the sentence put on hold while she appealed.
On Feb. 25, 2016, Quebec court Judge Daniel Bédard found Trudeau guilty of assaulting Serge Lavoie, an artist who was working at a studio in Montreal on the night of Oct. 2, 2012.
Trudeau was assigned to issue tickets for municipal infractions like jaywalking that night in the neighbourhood near the studio. She noticed that a friend of Lavoie’s was holding a can of beer on a public sidewalk and demanded he identify himself. The man asked Trudeau why she wanted to see an identification card, and the situation escalated out of control.
While Trudeau had Lavoie’s friend pinned to a sidewalk, Lavoie asked Trudeau if she was the police constable who became known as Agent 728 and Matricule 728 after a video posted on social media captured her liberally pepper-spraying students protesting against tuition hikes in 2012.
Being referred to in those terms appeared to set Trudeau off, and she chased Lavoie into the studio, grabbed him and dragged him down a flight of stairs. At one point, Trudeau pressed his face down on one stair so hard that Lavoie had difficulty breathing, and he said he assumed he was about to die.
A friend of Lavoie’s recorded the brutal arrest, and the disturbing video was first broadcast on Radio-Canada. Bédard determined Trudeau had no valid reason to arrest Lavoie.
In the decision released on Wednesday, Champagne wrote that Trudeau’s argument that she arrested Lavoie “in the heat of the action” has no merit. He said there was evidence Lavoie offered no resistance when she apprehended him. Champagne also disagreed with Trudeau’s claim that Bédard’s characterization of the arrest as “brutal” was an error.
“The videos of the event are eloquent on the subject of the brutality” of the arrest, Champagne wrote.