The trial of two former Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre (EMDC) staffers charged with failing to provide the necessities of life in connection with the 2013 murder of inmate Adam Kargus will begin Tuesday.
It comes on the heels of jury selection in the proceedings, which wrapped up late Monday afternoon.
Twelve jurors have been selected for the trial, which is set to last four weeks. Seven are men and five are women, along with two alternates — one man and one woman.
Former operational manager Stephen Jurkus and former correctional officer Leslie Lonsbary both face charges of failing to provide the necessaries of life in connection with the death of Kargus at EMDC on Oct. 31, 2013. Kargus, 29, was brutally beaten to death by a fellow inmate, Anthony George, at the facility.
George pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in September 2017 and was given a life sentence.
Jurkus and Lonsbary were charged in March 2014 alongside a third jail staffer whose charges were later withdrawn.
The two men were set to go to trial in May 2017. Those proceedings, however, were stayed by a Superior Court of Ontario justice in February 2017 after an application for a stay was brought forward by their lawyers on the basis of unreasonable delay.
The Crown appealed the decision, and in May 2018, the Ontario Court of Appeal held there was no unreasonable delay, that the application judge had erred in their analysis of the charter and that the matter should be remitted to the Superior Court for trial with a date set for January.
The province appealed that ruling, and in May 2018, the Ontario Court of Appeal agreed with the province’s stand, ordering the trial back on.
Lawyers for Jurkus and Lonsbary then sought leave to appeal that decision to the Supreme Court of Canada but were dismissed.
Since 2009, 13 inmates have died at EMDC. A joint inquest by the province is underway into the deaths of three men — Floyd Deleary in August 2015, Justin Thompson in October 2016 and Murray James Davis in August 2017.
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