Ex-lawyer charged with sex crimes against girl appears in court, minus a medical mask
Disgraced Ottawa lawyer J.D. Coon made another appearance in court Wednesday on charges of sex crimes against a child as his lawyer requested disclosure of evidence from the Crown.
Coon, 55, seemed upbeat as he appeared by video, spelling out his surname for the judge and identifying himself as “John David Coon,” taking a brief pause to speak privately with his lawyer.
He no longer wore the white surgical mask he was sporting at his previous court date a week ago, which had fuelled speculation Coon was suffering a medical condition when he returned to Canada Aug. 3 on an international flight to Vancouver.
Ottawa police took Coon into custody later that same day at the Ottawa airport.
Coon’s lawyer, Jenny McKnight, said outside court Wednesday that whatever was ailing her client last week is now a “non-issue.”
The one-time criminal defence and family lawyer is believed to have fled the country and spent more than five years on the lam before he was arrested over the long weekend. Coon had remained one of Ottawa police’s most wanted.
McKnight declined to comment on the three charges Coon faces, which include sexual assault, sexual interference and invitation to sexual touching. The alleged victim is a minor, and police said investigators believe there could be more victims.
Coon abruptly stopped practising law late in 2013 amid an Ottawa police sexual assault investigation. In July of that year, Ottawa police had started probing an alleged assault on a child.
By January 2014, sex crime detectives had a warrant for his arrest, believing Coon, then 49, had sexually assaulted a four-year-old girl — the daughter of one of his clients.
But by then, police believe, he had already fled the country — possibly to Cambodia or Thailand.
Coon was called to the Ontario Bar in 2006 and he had a combined child-protection defence and criminal defence practice.
In February 2016, while still wanted on the charges for which he is now in jail, Coon officially had his licence to practise law revoked by the Law Society of Upper Canada. According to the Law Society, Coon, who ran a practice specializing in child protection, engaged in professional misconduct by failing to co-operate with multiple Law Society investigations. That ruling revealed a history of sexual misconduct, and even an incident in which he was found guilty of sexually assaulting a child.
In 2014, the Law Society had suspended his licence after a complaint from the Children’s Aid Society. Coon, at the time, was already under investigation by the regulatory body after a female client alleged that she had sex with the lawyer in his office.
Law Society documents related to that suspension also revealed that Coon was given a licence to practise law in Ontario despite a history that included a prior guilty verdict for sexually assaulting a child.
According to the documents, Coon revealed in 2004 to the Law Society that he had been found guilty of sexually assaulting a friend’s 12-year-old daughter in 1991.
Coon was given a conditional discharge and 15 months’ probation, meaning he would be spared a criminal conviction and wouldn’t have a criminal record if he followed his court-ordered conditions and lived a law-abiding life.
Coon also told the Law Society that in the late 1980s he was attending a 12-step group program to address the “inordinate amount of time and money he spent cruising red light districts and hiring prostitutes.”
A publication ban was put in place to shield the identity of the alleged victim in Coon’s current charges, and he has been court-ordered to not communicate with several people involved in the case.
His lawyer asked for initial disclosure of evidence from the Crown, which prosecutors said was in the process of being “vetted” and prepared for disclosure “as soon as possible.”
Coon pressed his hands together in a prayer formation and thanked the judge.
He is scheduled to appear next in court August 28.