Updated at 4:30 p.m.
A new witness was the first to take the stand on day seven of the Keith Hobbs extortion trial. Up until that point court heard from the alleged victim himself, two police officers, a family friend and a woman who was also a friend to the alleged victim.
The first witness today was an OPP analyst Phil Wilkinson who reviewed data that was pulled from the three accused phones. The testimony and review of the technical data pulled from the phones this morning took most of the day. Much of the morning testimony has included technical briefings and explanations of texting behaviour like what an emoji is.
There seemed to be some confusion over some of the text message data and whether there were any missing messages that couldn’t be recovered by police. Wilkinson suggested to the court that he wasn’t 100 percent sure of which messages corresponded with each other and how many texts were missing. Justice Fletcher Dawson said to the witness that he is trying to decide beyond a reasonable doubt if something [extortion] has taken place and that he needs to know as much information as the witness can provide. Dawson seemed concerned stating “is it one message that is missing or four?”
Other highlights today include testimony that suggests contact between the accused was low before November 16th, 2016. Court heard after that data communication between the accused ramped up significantly. It’s alleged the communication spiked after the alleged victim disagreed with a deal to purchase a house.
Cross-examination delved into the OPP witness being unsure about a number of pieces of data from the three accused cellphones.
Strange and short testimony from the alleged victim’s housekeeper Tuesday afternoon. Alisa Makela talked about finding a will in one of the alleged victim’s homes on October 24th. She showed it to the alleged victim who at the time she says was really drunk and passed out in a chair. The alleged victim read the will and started pacing telling Makela that “it was a forgery and that they were just after his money.” She also talked about the alleged victim’s poor behaviour when he was drunk. A video was also introduced into evidence that involved Makela talking to the alleged victim about finding the will at one of his homes. The alleged victim can be heard saying on that audio/video recording that he has someone on forgery and that people had beaten him up to get him to sign the will.
Former mayor Hobbs, his wife Marisa, and co-accused Mary Voss are accused of trying to get a $400,000 house from the alleged victim. Four weeks have been set aside for the proceedings. A strict media ban prevents our newsroom from identifying certain individuals in the trial or telling you about some of the evidence.
There are four weeks scheduled for this trial but many feel it will be wrapped up by week three.
