Two inmates receive $3.5M after suffering beatings in jail
Two men with gang links who were beaten while awaiting trials in Metro Vancouver jails have been awarded a total of almost $3.5 million by the B.C. government to settle their lawsuits.
Independent Soldier associate Jesse Margison was given a $3-million settlement after suffering severe brain damage when another inmate at the North Fraser Pretrial Centre stomped on his head in August 2012.
At the time, he was facing kidnapping charges with several others, but was found unfit to stand trial after the beating, which left him in a coma for several weeks.
Margison’s lawyers filed a civil suit seeking damages to cover the cost of his ongoing care. They argued that jail staff should have been aware of the threats Margison was facing from rival gangsters and taken steps to protect him.
And Allen Ogonoski, a former gang member of Surrey Thugs Inc., was awarded $496,600 for the brain injury he suffered after being attacked in Surrey Pretrial by a rival gangster on Aug. 15, 2011.
His suit against the B.C. government alleged that he “was intentionally assaulted and battered” by another prisoner named Chris Fulmer with connections to the Red Scorpion gang, and that jail officials were negligent by not recognizing that he was incompatible with the Scorpion.
Both lawsuits were settled in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2017. Some details of the agreements were contained in an annual government report titled “Payments under the Crown Proceeding Act,” which was tabled last week.
In Margison’s case, the report said: “The plaintiff claims the province is liable for damages the plaintiff suffered when assaulted by Leonard Cardinal on or about Aug. 12, 2012. “He claims that in not preventing the assault, the province was negligent and/or breached his rights under section 7 and section 12 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”
And in both of the cases, the report said that a government lawyer advised that “the plaintiff might have a successful claim” and “that it is in the public interest to settle the claim.”
Lawyers for the two injured men could not be reached for comment Thursday.
Because of his brain injury, Margison was unable to assist his lawyers in piecing together the events that led up to the assault. They had filed several motions in B.C. Supreme Court to try to get North Fraser records related to gang inmates.
Cardinal pleaded guilty to aggravated assault in the attack, telling a Surrey provincial court judge that he had heard Margison was going to beat him so he launched a preemptive strike. The judge didn’t buy his explanation, and noted the horrendous injuries that Margison suffered.
Margison’s lawyers later learned their client had been visited at North Fraser in May 2012 by police to warn him that the Hells Angels wanted him dead. And they determined that Cardinal had been in contact with a jailed Hells Angel just a day before the attack.
Margison’s close associate and former co-accused Troy McKinnon, who was convicted in the kidnapping case, was shot to death in a gangland hit in Nanaimo in January.