UPDATED AT 3:41 p.m.
It was a snow-covered start to the fourth day of the extortion trial for former Mayor Keith Hobbs, his wife Marisa, and co-accused Mary Voss. Yesterday, Justice Fletcher Dawson asked the court if the snow could impact their plans for Thursday, suggesting that in southern Ontario snow can bring their communities to a halt. Court staff reassured the Justice they should be good to go for Thursday. When it came time to decide yesterday whether or not to call the alleged extortion victim to the stand so late in the day, the Justice mentioned he would like to get as much work done as possible. There are four weeks scheduled for this trial, but many officials would like to see it completed by the third week. Crown Peter Keen said he thought they would be further ahead in calling witnesses by now. There are a possible 14 witnesses that could be called by the crown. So far we have heard from a family friend of the alleged extortion victim, a police officer that introduced videos of the alleged extortion victim, and the unnamed alleged victim themselves.
Today we heard from the alleged extortion victim as well as another police officer. Scheduling conflicts for the officer meant they were only available for today, so court took a break from the alleged victim’s testimony to make room for Sgt. Chris Carlucci. The alleged victim was back on the stand, talking about the accused’s former home. The alleged victim explained that Voss’ house needed repairs and so he paid thousands of dollars to have the work done so the house could be sold. He claimed Voss told him that she would pay him back, but the alleged victim said he didn’t care if he received the money back. Testimony also revealed Voss wanted the alleged victim to purchase houses, repair them and then sell them. The alleged victim told the court he wasn’t sure about this proposition, because they weren’t very “handyman-like.” According to the alleged victim, Voss’ house sold and she kept the money for their retirement plan. A new house came up on the market and the alleged victim said Voss wanted him to purchase it for her and put her name on the deed; he told the court that he wanted Voss to go 50/50 on the home, but Voss didn’t want that.
Later the alleged victim told the court about their memory of drinking during the Fall of 2016, and described it as a “blackout” where he would go between remembering nothing to witnessing moments he will never forget. One of those moments is a phone conversation involving Mary Voss where the alleged victim claims Voss said: “I’ll get more money out of him.” This phone call was alleged to have been with someone from Ghana and involved purchasing property there. During this testimony, you could see Voss smile and shake her head back and forth in disagreement.
Other testimony focused on the relationship of the Hobbses with the alleged victim, including the victim possibly providing a loan to them. The alleged victim claimed that the former mayor wanted to be his bodyguard and wanted to get paid for it. He further claimed that two cheques were filled out for the Hobbs family, one in Keith’s name that was ultimately ripped up, and another in Marisa’s. The alleged victim said Hobbs was the mayor at the time but wanted to offer security services to him. He was unsure if the cheque they filled out was for that service or not, but the next morning they realized it would be inappropriate to give the Hobbses a cheque, so it was voided by Marisa.
The afternoon testimony detailed an explicit story the former Mayor Keith Hobbs told the alleged victim. He stated that Hobbs told him he helped cover up an incident report involving a police officer who hurt a prisoner who was rowdy and needed medical attention. The alleged victim said Hobbs was a sergeant at that time, and he helped make that story of the officer go away, and because of that, the officer owed the former mayor a favour. It was said that the officer was now in possession of a sealed envelope with a memory stick full of videos involving the alleged victim. The alleged victim, whose identity is protected under a media ban, then told the court that Hobbs repeatedly told him during the fall of 2016 that the victim should “pack their toothbrush because he would go away for a long time” if they didn’t look after Mary Voss. The former Mayor also repeatedly said he could make the videos go away for the alleged victim.
The alleged victim also testified that the former mayor drew up a separation agreement for him, but he did not provide any of the details to put into it. The alleged victim noted that Hobbs drafted the agreement on his own, and it wasn’t anything a lawyer would have drafted up, but was fine for a former police sergeant. Text messages between Marisa Hobbs and the alleged victim that said “Keith will draw up an agreement” and the victim replied, “sure and I’ll buy a house.” Further testimony revealed that, at a later time, the victim had a separate agreement created and that Voss became suspicious of it and was unhappy. The victim said the relationship with the accused went downhill after that and that the accused may go to the police.
The alleged victim also reviewed text messages between himself and family friend Craig Loverin. In the text, the alleged victim talked about “video queens and cash for silence and that Mary Voss would be getting $15,000.” Later the victim explained to the court that the $15K wasn’t for extortion, but was for Voss because she “ate him up alive” once she found out that the victim gave a gift of a car to another woman.
Cross-examination is expected to take place on Friday. Court will be starting earlier and wrapping up earlier that day to accommodate flights to southern Ontario.
