Crown Drops Sexual Assault Charge Against Alberta RCMP Officer

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Crown prosecutors have dropped a sexual assault charge against an Alberta Mounted Police officer filed following an investigation by the province’s police watchdog.

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Cpl. Kire Kondoski was stopped by the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) on January 22 for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman with whom he was in a relationship.

ASIRT claimed that the assault occurred sometime between July 30 and September 3, 2018, when Kondoski was off-duty and alone with the woman at his home in Edmonton. In a press release, the agency alleged that Kondoski committed a “serious sexual assault” against the woman after she tried to end the relationship. He was released with a court order.

Court records show that the Crown stopped prosecuting the case on September 24.

“The Crown has an obligation to constantly review cases to ensure that the evidence meets the standards of prosecution,” a spokeswoman for the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service said in an email. “Upon further review, the Calgary District Attorney’s Office concluded that the evidence regarding the sexual assault charge against (Corporal) Kondoski did not meet the standard of reasonable likelihood of conviction and, therefore, the charge was dropped.”

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In an email, Alberta RCMP spokesman Fraser Logan said Kondoski was suspended on pay shortly after his arrest.

The officer will remain suspended with pay until an internal conduct review is completed, he said.

“Obviously, I do not have a timeline for when that internal review will be completed, nor will we release the details of its findings publicly, unless it faces firing from the RCMP.”

The National Police Federation, the RCMP union, declined to comment on the case or connect Postmedia with Kondoski’s lawyer.

“We do not comment publicly on the individual matters of the members,” spokesman Fabrice de Dongo said in an email.

Unlike suspended charges, which can be reactivated within a year, withdrawn charges cannot be reopened.

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Reference-edmontonjournal.com

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