Ex-stampeder gets 90 days for assault
Joffrey Reynolds must apologize to ex-girlfriend, donate to shelter
CALGARY — Former Calgary Stampeders star running back Joffrey Reynolds was sentenced to 90 days in jail, to be served on weekends, and will be on probation for two years for assaulting his ex-girlfriend last summer.
As part of the sentence, Reynolds must write an apology letter to the victim, Kaitlin Ward, by the end of June and make a charitable donation of $5,000 to the Calgary Women’s Emergency Shelter by March 25, 2015.
Provincial court Judge Brian Stevenson said although the July 14 offence has elements of a domestic assault, their relationship was more one of friendship as they had broken up six months earlier.
Crown prosecutor Hyatt Mograbee had earlier argued for a prison sentence of two to three years for Reynolds, the all-time leading rusher of the Stampeders. He had joined the team late in 2004 and was a member of the 2008 Grey Cup champions.
Defence lawyer Bjorn Hirsanyi had argued for a noncustodial sentence — either a conditional sentence to be served in the community or strict probation. At the most, he said, if jailed was required it should be no more than 90 days.
Earlier, Mograbee read Ward’s victim impact statement in court. Ward said she was shocked that someone with whom she’d had a relationship for some six years could do this to her and she still felt in fear of him nearly a year later.
Reynolds, a native of Texas, also faces deportation back to the United States after being convicted of unlawfully being in the home of his ex-girlfriend, assaulting her at a bar and assaulting causing bodily harm to her at her home later that morning.
Stevenson said in convicting Reynolds, he didn’t believe the man’s version of events.
Ward had testified that she arrived home and was “shocked” to find Reynolds not only in her home, but in her bed. She said she had told him earlier he could not stay there and told the concierge not to let him in.
She said that when she went to the front door and told him to leave, he “tackled” her, threw her to the ground and tried to strangle or choke her.
Reynolds berated her and called her derogatory names, she said.
Ward, 27, who said she had an on-again, off-again relationship with Reynolds for six years and lived with him for nearly four years, told court he kicked her in the back of the leg as she was leaving following the earlier argument in the bar.
“I was scared, terrified, losing breath,” Ward said of the incident.
Reynolds, 33, appeared stunned by the decision but otherwise showed little emotion after the verdict.