Cross-examination of witness and family friend to the alleged victim continues on the third day of the Hobbs/Voss extortion trial. Late yesterday afternoon, Mary Voss’ lawyer George Joseph started his questioning of Craig Loverin. He followed Hobbs’ lawyer Brian Greenspan in highlighting some discrepancies between what Loverin earlier testified and what he told law enforcement officials when they interviewed him. Joseph asked a series of questions dealing with the close relationship between Loverin and the alleged victim.
Joseph’s line of questioning pulled from Loverin that he heard the alleged victim, ‘ok’ the purchase of a house for $400K for the accused Voss but wasn’t aware of why they were doing that. The cross-examination then covered the exchange of a USB stick with Loverin and Keith Hobbs. Loverin told the court, he was only to pick up an amended contract involving the purchase of the house but not to pick up a USB memory stick. Following the exchange of the memory stick from Hobbs to Loverin, Voss’ defence put forward it was unlikely the USB stick could have been given to the alleged victim before that person was able to sign the separation agreement.
Joseph suggested Voss went to Loverin for help in dealing with the behaviour of the alleged victim. Joseph submits to Loverin that when Voss was in need of safety, she didn’t go to police she went to Loverin for help. Loverin replied to Joseph that he didn’t respond to the text messages about Voss’ safety because he didn’t believe the messages. Joseph ended his cross-exam saying Loverin must have been disappointed when it turned out the allegations against his friend turned out to be true.
The media ban that is in place covers much of the second witnesses testimony. Ron Marki is a police officer who has been with the Thunder Bay Police Service and through his testimony a series of videos were introduced to the court. There’s very little that can be said about the videos on the USB sticks because of a number of publication bans. The disturbing videos were shown in court this morning with four people in the gallery watching them. Mary Voss and others in the court were visibly upset while watching the videos today. The videos included the alleged extortion victim behaving inappropriately and yelling obscenities at another person. After watching multiple videos this afternoon, Ron Marki, a police officer and the crown’s second witness resumed his testimony. Marki says they conducted a search of the alleged extortion victim’s home.
Updated at 3:00 p.m.
Alleged Extortion Victim Takes The Stand
As a reminder there is a publication ban limiting what can and can’t be said about the alleged extortion victim. The ban covers any testimony that could identify them. Crown Peter Keen spoke with the alleged victim about their family life and what they did for a living. They also discussed the many properties the alleged victim owned and the value of those houses in 2016. The unnamed witness also talked about their convictions in 2018 and said they are trying to rebuild their life. Other testimony focused on the unnamed individuals alcoholism and the fact that they sought treatment in southern Ontario. The witness testified that they drank 26 oz of hard alcohol like scotch in one sitting and did it for days on end. The person went on to say their drinking was in relation to their diagnosed traumatic grief which is a form of PTSD, where a person dwells on the death of their loved ones and it takes over their lives. The alleged victim told the court during their alcoholism the only thing they did was walk their dog and booze it up at night. The unnamed individual is expected to continue their testimony Thursday.
