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A new package delivery job that paid cash, and free meals with friends who liked your attitude.
And the promise of having some pending hate-crime charges simply disappear.
Seth Bertrand’s new connections knew of his troubles with the law, but they didn’t care about that, they even offered help. For the young Windsor man it meant no more fears of possibly being banned from crossing the U.S. border; it meant possibly getting his firearms licence; there was even the suggestion of a connection with Russians for military training.
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But it was all a “ruse,” a criminal trial is now hearing, designed by federal police agents to catch a neo-Nazi suspect in Windsor with alleged ties to a global terrorist organization, the Atomwaffen Division.
On Monday in a Windsor courtroom came testimony from the ‘Mr. Big’ of the sting that ensnared Bertrand — an undercover RCMP agent given the pseudonym ‘Eric.’ Anything that might reveal his real identity is the subject of a court-ordered publication ban. Eric entered and exited Windsor’s Superior Court of Justice via a side entrance off-limits to the public.
Bertrand, now 21, is on trial before Superior Court Justice Maria Carroccia for “participation in the activity of a terrorist group.” The bulk of court proceedings that began in October have so far been the subject of voir dires — trials within a trial, in which evidence introduced by the prosecution still has be ruled admissible by the judge.
Bertrand’s initial 90-minute videotaped interview with an RCMP sergeant at Windsor police headquarters after his arrest on May 5, 2022, is still in dispute. The defence argues the accused’s Charter rights were breached when he wasn’t given access to his requested lawyer, and that he wasn’t properly instructed as to his legal jeopardy in talking to police.
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And the judge must also still rule on whether to accept incriminatory evidence resulting from undercover police officer Eric’s recorded sit-down encounters with Bertrand and alleged enticements. The Crown disputes it was a Mr. Big operation, but according to documents filed earlier with the court, the prosecution is relying on statements made during what “may be considered to be the culmination of a Mr. Big operation.”
Controversial, and banned in some countries, the Mr. Big tactic usually sees police placing a suspect under extended surveillance and setting up a fictitious crime organization designed to get the unsuspecting target to confess.
‘Eric’ was one of two undercover RCMP operatives involved in a three-month police sting involving multiple officers in the lead-up to Bertrand’s arrest outside his Windsor home on May 5, 2022.
Eric portrayed himself as the head of a local package delivery company that also operated in a “gray area” outside of its legitimate business — using police and other connections to “make (criminal) charges go away.”
“It was not a ‘gray area’ but an illegal area,” Bertrand’s lawyer, Bobby Russon, said Monday.
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RCMP Sgt. Shelly Schedewitz, who interviewed Bertrand on the day of his arrest, was on the witness stand Monday. During cross-examination, Russon argued his client was never told he did not have to speak with the investigator.
Russon also questioned whether Bertrand even knew the specifics of the serious charge he was facing before the young man began opening up about his communications with far-right organizations and describing acts of harassment and vandalism committed in Windsor.
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Bertrand is not on trial for any specific act of terrorism, simply for allegedly making an effort to join and participate in a neo-Nazi terrorist network placed on Canada’s list of terrorist organization in early 2021. Atomwaffen Division has been implicated in serious crimes, including murder.
What put Bertrand on the radar of the RCMP’s Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET) was his arrest by Windsor police in April 2021 in connection to a series of hate attacks earlier that year at a same-sex couple’s home and at the Trans Wellness Ontario office on Tecumseh Road East that offers transgender support.
Bertrand pleaded guilty in August 2022 to charges of mischief and inciting hatred and was sentenced to five months of house arrest. At the time, Russon told the Star the additional federal terrorism allegation was “prosecutorial overreach” about a “theoretical” crime.
The blended voir dire/trial continues.
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