A Vancouver Island man awaits possible extradition to the United States on sexual assault charges against his 13-year-old stepdaughter.
The British Columbia Supreme Court ordered the man detained last week pending a decision by the federal justice minister on whether or not to turn the defendant over to authorities south of the border.
The defendant, identified in court documents as JL, is wanted by US federal authorities on behalf of the state of Utah.
according to the judge decision released Tuesday, JL is accused of sexually assaulting his stepdaughter continuously from June 2012 to June 2014.
The crimes are alleged to have occurred in St. George, Utah, where JL lived with his stepdaughter and her mother, whom he was married to at the time.
According to court documents, the stepdaughter told her mother about the alleged abuse in June 2014, but the allegations were not reported to police until November of that year.
JL left Utah that same month and is accused by US authorities of “fleeing” to Canada, while JL told the court that he planned to return to Canada as his marriage had ended.
“He says his return to Canada had nothing to do with the whistleblower speaking to police earlier that day,” British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Brian D. MacKenzie said.
JL was indicted in June 2015, prompting Utah police to issue a warrant for his arrest.
during a 2021 extradition hearingJL testified that he left Canada in May 2015, traveled and worked in various countries before returning to Canada in October 2019.
He testified that upon his return he obtained a BC driver’s license under the direction of Sooke, BC where the RCMP later found and arrested him on June 16, 2020.
“JL emphasizes the fact that he traveled many countries on his Canadian passport between 2015 and 2019 and was never arrested or detained,” the judge said.
“He notes that he returned to Canada with his valid Canadian passport without incident. It was only after approximately nine months, during which he lived with his parents in Sooke, that he or his family had any contact with a law enforcement agency.”
JL argued that the five-year delay in seeking his extradition to the US is contrary to the principles of fundamental fairness under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The judge ruled that the delay was not long enough to make the extradition hearing unfair.
“What US authorities did or did not do in trying to locate JL and whether their efforts were ‘continuing and substantial’…is not a circumstance that, in my view, makes the extradition process unfair or amounts to such a fundamental denial of justice that this is one of those rare cases where the extradition process must be suspended,” the judge said.
The judge ordered JL’s detention pending an extradition decision from Justice Minister David Lametti.
Under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, JL cannot be extradited to the US until 30 days after the judge’s commitment order. He has the right to appeal the order and request an interim judicial release from custody.