On The Coutts Verdict, Part One
The most important court case in Canada just wrapped up, and the Coutts Men were found NOT GUILTY. The first in a multi-part examination.
This will be the first in a multi-part series on what has happened with the Coutts trial, and the many, many questions which flow from it. As we all know, the mainstream media are not going to ask these questions, nor tell you the truth about what went on, because that is not their job, and the Canadian government is going to do everything they can to pretend like the last four years didn’t happen, and absolve themselves of any responsibility.
Part one here is a short piece on the verdict itself, and something of an explainer about the charges and what they all mean. Originally, this was the first half of a much longer story, which included questions about the prosecution, which, after some long phone calls and serious consideration, I have decided to delay publishing until after Tony and Chris are ‘sentenced’. You will understand why in due time. I am also looking at co-writing a piece with a colleague which examines the deeper questions for the government that flow from the verdict, and with any luck that will be out very soon.
Thanks for reading, and stay tuned.
By now, many of you would have heard that late on Friday, August 2nd, at approximately 930pm mountain time, after two and a half days of deliberations, the jury on the trial of Chris Carbert and Tony Olienick came to a decision on the various charges against them, the most serious of which was ‘conspiracy to murder police officers’, of which they were found NOT GUILTY.
This allegation was the nexus of Justin Trudeau’s invocation of the Emergencies Act, better understood as War Measures Act 2.0, in dealing with the largest peaceful protest in Canadian history. Though Trudeau has since been rebuked by the Mosley decision, with Justice Mosley stating -
“I have concluded that the decision to issue the Proclamation (of the Emergencies Act) does not bear the hallmarks of reasonableness – justification, transparency and intelligibility – and was not justified,”
This verdict is now the final nail in the coffin of Trudeau’s actions against his own people, and also upends the ruling of Justice Rouleau from the Public Order Emergency Commission, where the alleged guilt of the Coutts Men was a primary factor.
As alluded to in the pre-amble to this article, there is more to be said about the POEC, the Mosley Decision, and the government actions and rhetoric which lead us to this situation, and that will come in great detail in a future piece.
In the meantime, my friends at Newsweek published a very short, Readers Digest version of what the verdict means by yours truly, which was supposed to be much longer, but at my editor’s insistence many other details were left out of the piece. I lost that battle, but in the interest of fighting back against two and a half years of smearing and disinformation spewed forth by Canadian media about the men and this story, the shorter version getting out on a platform like Newsweek was better than nothing.
Here is the Newsweek piece, with snippets below.
A Political Trial Unfolds in Canada—and the Coutts Four Are Exonerated
Trudeau and his government used damning claims made by undercover police officers about the Coutts Four and their rhetoric as evidence of their violent nature, which was then used by Canadian media outlets to smear the men in the days and months following their arrest. (This smearing operation was so toxic that the men's lawyers sought a publication ban on these officers' notes, which the media mostly ignored.)
Yet during the trial, it was revealed that not one of the claims made by the undercover cops had any kind of evidence to back it up—no recording, no bodycam footage, nothing. When video footage of Tony Olienick's interrogation by the RCMP was played for the court, nothing he said corroborated the accusation of a conspiracy to murder. Text messages and group chats obtained by the RCMP were likewise short on imminent threats of violence, much less evidence of any conspiracy to murder. The trial devolved into intricate debates over the meaning of emojis and Olienick's criticisms of the Chinese Communist Party and the United Nations.
Furthermore, documents obtained under an Access to Information and Privacy Act request showed that the RCMP had been profiling protesters by running license plates through databases, then focusing in on those who possessed federal gun licenses. It was also revealed that Tony Olienick became a target for the RCMP because an undercover officer heard someone in Smuggler's Saloon, a bar in Coutts that had become a de-facto meeting place for the protesters, say that Olienick was going to bring her some Ivermectin, a medication that has been hotly contested in use for treating COVID. In other testimony, we heard that Chris Carbert had rejected COVID payments from the Canadian government, handed out to businesses across the country in a vain effort to keep the economy going under Trudeau's oppressive mandates.
It's soon enough to ask crucial questions, not just about the miscarriage of justice but about how Canada's media did Trudeau's dirty work for him by smearing four innocent men in the court of public opinion, refusing to report on any countervailing evidence or ask any questions at all of the strange circumstances around this case.
Those questions abound: Why were men with no criminal records or history of violence denied bail for two years?
Why were Jerry Morin and Tony Olienick kept for lengthy periods of solitary confinement, a recognized form of torture, and denied necessary medical care?
The media in Canada made other victims of carceral torture, Maher Arar and Omar Khadr, into household names. Why not lift a finger to defend these men?
As always with Newsweek, I am hamstrung by word count limits, and being a generalist publication, my editor is loathe to let me get into fine grain details. Since the piece has been published, I’ve been criticized for not addressing all of the minor charges Olienick and Carbert were found ‘guilty’ of, and all I can tell you is that you should consider the Ouroboros that is media today. What came first, the narrow attention spans, or the narrowing of the content? I can only work with what they let me.
I need to address the ‘pipe bomb’ thing yet again, as this was one of the parts Newsweek cut out, because before, during, and after this trial, our loathesome media used this piece of the story to scare the hell out of people, smear the men, and prejudice any potential jury. Though some media eventually acknowledged that the ‘pipe bombs’ were, in fact, industrial explosives, they left out yet more critical details about them, any questions about the charge, and why it was laid.
Tony Olienick was found guilty of ‘possession of an explosive device’, and in some technical sense, he is guilty, given that whatever permits he may have had were out of date, and it seems that his defense counsel didn’t have them as evidence. The ‘bombs’ themselves were also out of date, assembled in 2010 by Tony’s late father, George. They were rusted pretty bad, and the explosives expert witness called by the Crown testified to difficulty in disassembling them, and having to ‘break them open’ so as to test the materials inside.
(While I have mentioned in other of my articles that Olienick had municipal permits, it seems I was not informed of their expiration, or that they may have belonged to his late father. A technicality, but still, my apologies.)
The possession charge was a smooth move on the part of The Crown, an opportunity to expand the number of charges against Olienick after RCMP raided his property near Claresholm, Alberta, nearly 200km away from the protest site. Despite the fact that one of Tony’s business associates testified at trial as to their industrial use, and that they were old, and that Tony and his late father had a history of using them, this testimony was all irrelevant in the face of the charge. Tony ‘possessed’ them, in a storage container at a gravel quarry 200km away, and the fact that these explosives had nothing to do with the protest at Coutts is the point.
The Crown was absolutely aware that the explosives had nothing to do with the other charges, but they were able to pad their case, and further prejudice any jury, and more specifically, prejudice the court of public opinion, by charging him anyway. Notice how it’s not possession for ‘a dangerous purpose’ or ‘with intent to harm’ or that there was no attempt by the Crown to otherwise make a legitimate connection between the explosives and the protest? They couldn’t, but the simple possession charge would be enough to make Tony Olienick, as well as his co-defendants, into murderous devils in the minds of the public, and would be an easy enough point to score in court.
In the Newsweek piece, I did discuss one of the other lessor charges -
"possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose" for having small caliber hunting rifles stored in Carbert's travel trailer at a nearby property. What that "dangerous purpose" was is a mystery that resides in the minds of the jury, as the Crown, having failed to prove conspiracy to murder, also failed to identify any dangerous intent on the part of either Carbert or Olienick.
I probably should have pointed out the obvious in a more clear way, as it is pretty simple - if the ‘conspiracy to murder police officers’ was found to be a fantasy without any evidence to support it …. that means there was no evidence for any ‘dangerous purpose.’
And this is not even considering the countervailing testimony and evidence, or the fact that everyone in Alberta has guns, they were stored properly on private property, and that no one is taking on the heavily armed RCMP with small bore rifles and shotguns used for hunting gophers. There is also the matter of RCMP ‘charter breaches’, as the RCMP never had guns specified in their search warrants, and were it not for technicalities stemming from the plea deals which saw Jerry Morin and Chris Lysak released in February, the guns would have been dismissed as evidence and not seen in trial at all, contra that infamous propaganda photo which continues to haunt this case.
That said, something everyone in Canada should take to heart in reading this - it is the belief of many involved with the trial that the ‘dangerous purpose’ the jury got them on is ….. self defense. Tony Olienick described one of the reasons for having their firearms nearby was a legitimate fear that some group like (tr)ANTIFA might show up and cause trouble, which is not an unfounded concern, given that one of these losers drove a jeep into a crowd of Freedom Convoy protesters in Winnipeg, sending numerous people to hospital.
(Interesting how ANTIFA took the side of the government and the cops, but such is the logic of communist shitbirds.)
Any police officer in the know in Canada will tell you, off the record, any tool or device you might have in your car or your home that one might use to defend themselves, must never be admitted to as such. That tool must be incidental to the fact it might be used in self defense, as in Canada, self defense is not a clear cut right that you enjoy, and the courts will most likely find you guilty for defending yourself with a weapon, should you find yourself in such a position, rather than calling the police for ‘assistance’ instead.
Olienick and Carbert learned this the hard way, but as that weapons charge is tied to the conspiracy charge, they’re going to appeal it. Having a judge reading the case rather than a jury, it stands to reason that they have a very good chance of success at overturning that particular conviction.
The other charge for which Olienick and Carbert were both found guilty is ‘mischief’.
This particular charge has been carpet-bombed by the government against hundreds of Freedom Convoy protesters, and is still being litigated today against the two most prominent faces of the Convoy, Tamara Lich and Chris Barber, whose ‘mischief’ trial is the longest such trial in Canadian history, and serves as an example of the utterly vindictive nature of the Trudeau government.
Their trial resumes next week.
In a strange twist to a case which has been filled with countless bizarre components and goings on, Chris Carbert’s lawyer, Katherin Beyak, invited the jury to find her client guilty of the mischief charge, and listed off his leadership qualities and how he had played a role in managing the protest at Coutts.
’Mischief’, as a charge in Canadian law, is more or less based on abuse or misuse of property, as per the Criminal Code -
Mischief
430 (1) Every one commits mischief who wilfully
(a) destroys or damages property;
(b) renders property dangerous, useless, inoperative or ineffective;
(c) obstructs, interrupts or interferes with the lawful use, enjoyment or operation of property; or
(d) obstructs, interrupts or interferes with any person in the lawful use, enjoyment or operation of property.
I am told that by having her client admit ‘guilt’ that this would have a mitigating effect on sentencing, but when we look at what happened to the Coutts ‘3’, the case involving the alleged ‘leadership’ of the protest, we saw that the same Crown Prosecutor, Steven Johnston, convinced a jury to convict those men of ‘mischief’ even though no evidence was presented that they were guilty of the charge as such. Johnston, in his closing statement, said that by their mere attendance these men were guilty.
When we look at the mischief charge above, the property in question is public property, specifically Alberta Highway 4, where it crosses the border at Coutts, and only parts C and D apply, as the protest can be argued to have interrupted the lawful use of the highway.
Chris Carbert’s vehicles were never parked on the highway; his travel trailer was parked on private property half a kilometer away from the protest site. Tony Olienick’s gravel truck was part of the protest, but like so many other of the trucks in Coutts, he was parked half in the ditch, and half on the shoulder, and was not really blocking the road.
How Johnston convinced the jury to convict the Coutts 3 on ‘mischief’ is a mystery we will never know, as jury deliberations are kept secret, forever, by law. It is my contention that a dangerous precedent was set here, and though I understand Ms Beyak’s desire to mitigate any further punishment for her client, a finding of ‘guilty’ for both Carbert and Olienick with regards to the mischief charge is faulty, and must be appealed.
From what I am told of others about the jury on the trial of Chris Carbert and Tony Olienick, and what I could only glean from their appearance in the two days I attended court myself at the end the trial, is that there were two factions at play - one who I will loosely describe as ‘CBC Canadian Karens’, urbanites who through their reactions to testimony it could be discerned that they don’t know anything about guns or the culture of people in rural Alberta who are not pre-disposed to having their lives ruined by Federal Diktat, and the other faction, of those who appeared more neutral, or who took a lot more notes and showed non-verbal skepticism towards the fantastic and unverifiable claims of various Crown witnesses.
It is within the realm of possibility that ‘horse trading’ between these two factions of the jury took place during final deliberations, perhaps to avoid having a hung jury, perhaps to get out of there as soon as possible, after having their own lives interrupted for two months. Jurors, like the rest of us, are only human, and were no doubt looking at that clock ticking on the wall before a summer holiday weekend.
Given this possibility, I believe both factions had to make concessions to the other, and that faction who were rightly skeptical of the Crown’s utter lack of evidence on the conspiracy charge may have had to concede the lessor charges to the Karens, who may have wanted guilt on all counts. I could be wrong, and we will never know.
Regardless, it appears that the charge of ‘possession of weapons for a dangerous purpose’ was nuked by the not guilty verdict on the ‘conspiracy to murder police officers’ charge, and I look forward to seeing that appeal before a judge, rather than a jury, along with the an appeal of the mischief charge, the conviction for which I believe was arrived it in error, or as a result of the horse trading.
Due to process, bureaucracy, timing, and the vindictive nature of the Crown Prosecutor, sentencing arguments over the lessor charges will not take place until later this month. It is believed that they will be released on time served or less for those lessor charges, though who knows what might happen, given all of the other ridiculous events in this case.
Tony and Chris remain in custody, despite having been cleared of the charge which resulted in their 28 month PRE-TRIAL incarceration, and that charge being the reason a politicized member of the judiciary denied them bail. 31 months will have passed between their arrests and release.
This trial has incurred significant legal costs, to the tune of an additional 100k+ since the trial started in June, and when Tony and Chris walk out of court, they will be in some pretty serious debt.
My GiveSendGo for their legal bills remains open and accepting of your generous donations - https://www.givesendgo.com/trudeauspoliticalprisoners
I look forward to bringing you more discussion about the deep questions posed to our government, and our ‘democracy’, which stem from this ruling.
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As always, questions, comments, suggestions, corrections and Hate Mail are both welcomed and encouraged - gordilocks@protonmail.com
As always, thank you!
Thank goodness!!! ❤️ and thanks to the hard work, stamina and dedication of the community surrounding these men. What an absolute travesty.