MONTREAL -- Stefanie Trudeau, the infamous ex-Montreal police officer who came to be known as "Agent 728," has failed in her bid to have her conviction overturned.
The former officer was appealing a 2016 decision that found her guilty of assault that took place after she found Rudi Ochietti walking the streets carrying a bottle of beer. Trudeau, then an SPVM officer, arrested him with force and another man, Serge Lavoie, who found himself nearby, the decision reads. In the course of the arrest, the decision said, she assaulted Lavoie. She received a one-year suspended sentence and 60 hours of community service.
Trudeau's lawyer argued before the Quebec Court of Appeal that judge Daniel Bedard made several errors of law during her trial, on a charge of assaulting a civilian during an arrest in 2012. The appellate decision agreed. "Justice Bédard made manifest and decisive errors finding that the appellant had no reasonable grounds to proceed to the arrest of Mr. Ochietti and that, as a result, she no longer acted in the performance of her duties," the decision read.
The appellate court said that Trudeau's actions had, in fact, been performed under duress, in the heat of the action, in opposition to what Bedard had initially declared. Bedard also considered Trudeau's personal situation in his ruling and qualified one of Trudeau's arrests as "brutal," which he shouldn't have done, the appellate court ruled.
But the appellate judges ultimately decided that Bedard's decision, despite its flaws, was reasonable, carefully balanced and had properly considered the public interest in making his decision. The Court of Appeal denied Trudeau's attempt to appeal her conviction and refused to hear the appeal on her sentence.
