Man waiting for lawyer after conviction overturned

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A Kings County man who had a conviction in a brutal camp assault overturned on appeal needs a lawyer before setting a date for a retrial.

Jody Ozolins, 51 of Knightville Road in Mount Pisgah, appeared by video Friday in Saint John Provincial Court. Ozolins was convicted in January last year of assault causing bodily harm relating to a “planned, brutal and vicious assault” against three people in a camp on Whites Mountain Road on Oct. 24, 2020, where his glasses were found.

During two days of trial in December 2022, court heard that four masked men broke into a residence early in the morning on Oct. 24, 2020, and assaulted Troy Holland, Mark McGrath and Victoria Norman, all asleep, with McGrath’s jaw smashed by a man with a pipe. Surveillance footage saw a man with glasses entering the residence, and glasses with Ozolins’ DNA were found on the scene.

Last month, his conviction was overturned by the Court of Appeal on the basis that his lawyer had not appropriately introduce alibi evidence, in the form of testimony from his wife, who said she was with him at the time. Ozolins is in jail in Shediac on another sentence, and told Judge Claude Haché that it’s been “basically impossible” to get a lawyer while locked up with no access to a phone.

The lawyer Ozolins had on appeal, Ben Reentovich, told the Court of Appeal last month that Ozolins was serving a 10-and-a-half month sentence for the unrelated case involving a stolen truck and that he expected to be released in May. But Erickson said his understanding was that that sentence only started from the date that the first conviction was overturned.

Haché said Ozolins needs to enter choice of court and plea, as though “we are starting anew.” Crown prosecutor Jeremy Erickson said that because appeal retrials have priority status, it can’t wait till May. Ozolins was set to return March 8.

Ozolins was put on an undertaking, when eventually released, to have no contact with the alleged victims.