The Quebec Court of Appeal has opened a door allowing an opportunity for Stéfanie Trudeau, the Montreal police officer who was convicted of assault in 2016, to appeal her case.
The appellate court issued the decision on Wednesday. It does not overturn the decision made by Quebec Court Judge Daniel Bédard, on Feb. 25, 2016, finding Trudeau guilty of having assaulted Serge Lavoie on Oct. 2, 2012. But it allows Trudeau the chance to ask for a second appeal of her case.
On Oct. 2, 2012, what began with Trudeau asking a friend of Lavoie’s to produce identity for carrying an open bottle of beer in public degenerated within seconds into a fiasco. While Trudeau had Lavoie’s friend pinned to the ground, he asked her if she was indeed “Agent 728” — a nickname Trudeau received after a video of her pepper-spraying protesting students went viral months earlier. Trudeau lost her temper and aggressively arrested Lavoie after he asked the question. The nickname was a reference to her badge number.
Bédard ruled that Trudeau, 45, had no legal right to arrest Lavoie and she was later sentenced, on May 26, 2016, to carry out 60 hours of community service and 12 months of probation. She appealed both the conviction and the sentence, before Quebec’s Superior Court, but was rejected last summer.
Trudeau still maintains she was protected by a section of the Criminal Code covering the “Protection of Persons Administering and Enforcing the Law” when she arrested Lavoie. Fellow artists who were inside the studio when Lavoie was arrested recorded what happened on video and images from the recordings were broadcast on Radio Canada before she was charged. In one video, Trudeau is seen pressing Lavoie’s face against a stair. During the trial, Lavoie testified that he was unable to breath at that moment and believed he was about to die.
“Although (Trudeau’s) appeal presents difficulties, I find there is sufficient questions raised by her in terms of (that section of the Criminal Code) to give her permission to appeal,” Justice Marie-Josée Hogue wrote in her decision delivered on Wednesday.