NEWS Court rejects claim for drug dealer death benefit

LCharlie Smith

ife insurance companies routinely void payouts if the claimant was involved in criminal activity.

That’s what happened when the beneficiary of Kevin Valentyne’s policy tried to collect after he was murdered in January 2013.

His death came after he entered a house occupied by drug dealers at the corner of North Templeton Drive and Oxford Street with his car still running. His girlfriend waited in the vehicle but he never returned. Valentyne’s blood was discovered in the home.

Vancouver police issued a missing-person bulletin, but his body has never been found.

According to a decision posted earlier this month on the B.C. Court of Appeal website, Valentyne’s mother, Vanessa, appealed Canada Life’s decision not to pay out a life-insurance benefit. The insurance company fought the claim in B.C. Supreme Court, obtaining an affidavit from then VPD sergeant (now staff sergeant) Dale Weidman. He declared that Valentyne was known to be a drug trafficker and known to be affiliated with gang members.

Weidman also pointed out that Valentyne had been jailed in the past for trafficking drugs.

“As a result of my investigation, it is my opinion that Kevin Valentyne is likely deceased, having been the victim of a homicide following his disappearance on January 7, 2013 as a result of his involvement in the drug trade,” Weidman stated in his affidavit.

Valentyne’s mother, however, disputed that her son was involved in criminal activity at the time of his death.

The judge sided with the insurer, dismissing the application.

Valentyne’s mother then appealed to the B.C. Court of Appeal, objecting to the trial judge’s acceptance of the affidavits of Weidman and a private investigator.

In particular, the mother felt that certain statements by Weidman were inadmissible. They include the sergeant’s claim that Valentyne was intruding on a rival gang’s territory and that Valentyne would have been in possession of cocaine or heroin when he entered the home on North Templeton Street.

The three-judge panel—elizabeth Bennett, Sunni Stromberg-stein, and John Savage—agreed that the trial judge made errors, acknowledging that some of Weidman’s comments constituted hearsay.

However, the three judges also concluded that Valentyne’s mother conceded at trial that he was associated with the United Nations gang and that he was murdered by people advised to do this by members of another gang.

“Having made those appropriate concessions—taking the position that Mr. Valentyne was murdered as a result of his involvement in criminal activity—ms. Valentyne cannot repudiate that position in this Court,” the judges concluded.

The mother still didn’t admit that his death came while he was committing a criminal offence. However, that wasn’t enough to persuade the three judges to order a new trial.

“Nevertheless, taking into account the evidence that was not contested and the admissions made, the inescapable inference is that Mr. Valentyne died while committing the criminal offence of possession, trafficking, or possession for the purpose of trafficking illicit drugs, all of which are indictable offences,” they ruled. “He was a known drug dealer, he went to a known drug reload house, he was affiliated with a criminal gang, and his intention was to go into the house and quickly return.

“The only logical inference from this circumstantial evidence is that he bought or sold drugs at that location, was murdered, and therefore died while committing a criminal offence, invoking the exclusion clause.” HAITIAN FILMMAKER and former human-rights lawyer Michèle Stephenson codirected American Promise, a Sundance Film Festival award-winning documentary about her son and one of his classmates navigating race relations at a prestigious New York private school. Now a visiting professor of journalism at UBC, Stephenson will deliver a lecture titled “Beyond Inclusion: Building Narratives of Liberation”, in which she’ll discuss inequitable power structures, personal accountability, and contributing to positive change through storytelling. Stephenson will speak at 7 p.m. on Wednesday (January 16) at UBC Robson Square. Register at eventbrite.ca/.g