Drug dealer claims Crown witnesses lied about his involvement in homicide

Bronson Gordon told a Regina jury Crown witnesses lied about his alleged involvement in the confinement and killing of Reno Lee.

“He’s lying, he’s really lying,” Gordon said of one witness who testified Gordon armed him with a gun to confront and confine Lee.

He also said a woman lied in saying Gordon told her she had to do some favours for them and a second woman wasn’t telling the truth when she testified about telling Gordon of blood found in her house.

But Gordon admitted to having lied numerous times himself in the course of two videotaped statements he provided to police the month after Lee’s death.

Gordon began his testimony on Wednesday with questions from his lawyer Marianna Jasper before facing cross-examination Thursday and Friday by the Crown and lawyers representing his two coaccused, Andrew Bellegarde and Daniel Theodore.

Gordon, 33, Bellegarde, 24, and Theodore, 34, are standing trial on charges of first-degree murder and offering an indignity to human remains. The charges relate to a string of events from April 16, 2015, the date 34-year-old Lee was allegedly killed.

During the Crown’s case, the jury heard testimony Lee was held at gunpoint at Gordon’s Angus Street apartment before being taken to a house on Garnet Street where he was bound and eventually shot twice in the head. Court heard his dismembered and decapitated body was found later that month.

Gordon’s role in the night’s events has been the subject of his testimony, which entered the third day with an often-intense crossexamination by Crown prosecutor Adam Breker.

Gordon maintained he knew nothing about what was to transpire, telling the jury his intention in meeting with Lee was for the two drug dealers to talk business.

But Breker suggested Gordon was well aware there was to be more to that meeting. Breker pointed to previous testimony from Gordon that he’d been confronted over his own drug debt by a “Mexican” identified only as Romeo, who threatened Gordon. Gordon said Theodore — often referred to by the name Buddha — was brought on board to manage that debt.

Breker suggested to Gordon his experience with Romeo meant he knew far more about the fate awaiting Lee than he was letting on, pointing to portions of Gordon’s videotaped police statements from May 15 and 16, 2015, in which he said what happened to the heavily indebted Lee “was supposed to happen to me.”

Gordon told the court he lied during those interviews, claimed police coached him and said he was high on crystal meth.

Breker also questioned Gordon about the believability of his testimony on various points, such as Gordon saying he was angry his good friend was dragged into the incident when his house was used to confine and eventually kill Lee. Breker questioned Gordon why, if he was so angry, he would have sent free drugs over to some of those involved in the confinement.

“It doesn’t make sense …,” Gordon agreed. “Everything makes no sense what happened there that night.”

As to why Gordon didn’t confront Theodore over what happened, Gordon replied, “I’m scared of Buddha.”

Breker pointed out that if Gordon’s version of events is to be believed, the night was just a “series of bad coincidences” for him or “bad luck” that Lee, initially confined at Gordon’s apartment, ended up taped up and ultimately dead in the home of Gordon’s friend.

“It’s not bad luck,” Gordon said. “It’s devastating, not only to my life but to other people’s lives that went there.”

Lawyers for Bellegarde and Theodore said evidence is not being called in their clients’ cases.

The jury returns on Wednesday for closing addresses by counsel.