Man charged with posting ad to have cop killed acquitted
A 48-year-old Montreal man was acquitted on Friday in a case where he was charged with counselling people to murder a Montreal police spokesperson.
The jury delivered the verdict at the Montreal courthouse after only one day of deliberation.
Anatoliy Vdovin, a resident of the Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Damede-Grâce borough, was accused of using the Westmount Public Library in 2013 to post online ads on Craigslist and another lesser known website called Adcentre to offer $1,000 to anyone willing to kill Ian Lafrenière, a longtime spokesperson for the police force. Lafrenière was a commander at the time and his since been promoted to the rank of inspector.
The ad, posted in English, referred to Lafrenière as “slime” and claimed the reward offer was from the “James Roszko Foundation for Justice.” The group does not exist but it was a reference to Roszko, a man who shot and killed four RCMP constables in Mayerthorpe, Alta., in 2005.
A week after the ads were posted, police investigators traced the posting to the library in Westmount and began showing staff photos of a man who was captured on security cameras when they went online. A member of the staff pointed out that a man who bore a resemblance to the person in the photos was, at that very moment, seated in the library and was using a laptop computer.
Vdovin was arrested on the spot and police seized the laptop.
The jury was presented with evidence that the same computer was used to post the ads. But, according to the Journal de Montréal, Vdovin testified earlier this week and denied having posted the ads.
He told the jury he shared the computer with other people.
By law, jury deliberations in Canada are secret, so it is impossible to know if the jury believed Vdovin’s testimony.
The prosecution also had to prove that the person who posted the ad actually intended to have Lafrenière killed.