Ex-Rider Cox faces new assault charges

Justin Jemar Cox, the former Saskatchewan Roughriders player acquitted of assault causing bodily harm in May, faces two new assault charges in Regina.

Cox is now charged with assault causing bodily harm and assault with a weapon — a handgun. According to a news release from Regina police issued late Monday, the 24-year-old is accused in an alleged “domestic conflict” incident involving a 23-year-old woman. Police were alerted around 6:15 p.m., Aug. 30, of an injured woman in hospital.

About an hour later on Aug. 30, according to police, a female employee of a Regina business alleged a man pointed a gun at her when returning to retrieve a hat. Cox is charged with assault with a weapon.

Cox was held and made a first appearance in Regina provincial court on Aug. 31 on the assault causing bodily harm charge, when the Crown agreed to release on a range of conditions, including that he not contact that complainant and two other people named; not refer to the complainant on social media; maintain a curfew; and not possess weapons.

But the Crown changed its mind on Cox’s release by the next day, when he was back in court on the second charge. (While the assault causing charge was sworn on Aug. 31, the other charge wasn’t sworn by police until Sept. 1.)

A bail hearing was held Sept. 1 — the details of which are subject to a court-imposed publication ban — following which a judge released

Cox on similar conditions. Added conditions include that Cox not attend

Regina Centre Crossing and that he surrender his passport.

The charges return to court Sept. 14.

Despite his previous acquittal — when a judge deemed there was insufficient evidence to support the charge in an alleged domestic assault — the Roughriders hierarchy decided then not to take Cox back into the fold.