Mother of Quebec toddler found earlier this week 'needs help,' lawyer says
The mother appeared in court briefly while lawyers set a new date for her bail hearing and a judge authorized a publication ban on the case.
"We have a person here who is living with immense distress. This is someone who needs help," said Olivier Béliveau, the lawyer.
The mother cannot be named due to a publication ban that now protects the identity of her daughter, the three-year-old who went missing last Sunday and was found three days later after an intensive search.
The mother was "extremely relieved" when news reached her that her daughter was safe, Béliveau said.
She has been charged with child abandonment, which carries a maximum potential sentence of five years in prison.
Defence lawyers intend to present a bail plan for the mother that would see her receive "support and get her help," Béliveau added. He said the defence was not seeking a psychiatric evaluation, for now.
Lili Prévost-Gravel, the Crown prosecutor, said the prosecution remains opposed to the mother's release on the grounds that it is not in the public interest.
"She can receive care in the infirmary of the detention centre. That's a right she has as an inmate," Prévost-Gravel said.
Prosecutors were continuing to analyze the evidence, she said. More charges could be brought against the mother in the future.
The toddler was found on Wednesday when an Ontario Provincial Police drone spotted her by the side of Highway 417, near St-Albert, Ont., about 150 kilometres west of Montreal.
It was the best-case-scenario end to a four-day search that had included up to 200 officers and trained volunteers, police on horseback, a helicopter and ATVs.
The girl had last been seen in Montreal's LaSalle borough on Sunday morning.
Her mother reported her missing a few hours later at a store in Coteau-du-Lac, about 50 kilometres west of Montreal.
The case will return to court in July for a bail hearing.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNN
8 minutes ago
- CNN
Cash, gloves and screenshots: Top investigators detail Bryan Kohberger's unusual behavior after Idaho student murders
In the days after murdering four University of Idaho students in an off-campus home, Bryan Kohberger's behavior shifted dramatically and investigators would later find that he had fixated on news coverage of the killings and began paying for items in cash – often wearing gloves – as he avoided the area of the murders. The details emerged Friday in CNN's wide-ranging, sit-down interview with Idaho State Police Lt. Darren Gilbertson and Moscow Police Chief Anthony Dahlinger. The key investigators shared new insight into Kohberger's unusual behavior and the violent struggles that took place inside the home in November 2022. 'Everything lined up' for investigators once they started looking into Kohberger as a suspect, Gilbertson told CNN. By the time the FBI linked Kohberger to DNA found on a knife sheath left at the scene, the investigation had dragged on for several weeks, with thousands of tips pouring in, he said. Kohberger's name seemed to click everything into place, he added. The former criminology graduate student, who was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday as part of a controversial plea deal, showed 'very strong changes in behavior' after the killings, Gilbertson said. Though Kohberger returned to the area a few hours after the murders, investigators said they believe he never set foot in Moscow again after that, he said. Here are some of the key revelations from investigators: Though it would take investigators nearly two months to identify and arrest Kohberger at his parents' Pennsylvania home, the killer had spent those weeks taking strange precautions. 'He stops using his debit card, his credit cards. He starts only using cash,' Gilbertson said. '(In) video and surveillance that we would collect and pick up after that, he's often wearing gloves.' Before law enforcement seized his electronic devices, Kohberger had been wiping data from them. Even so, he had kept several screenshots and pictures of news coverage of the killings, according to Gilbertson. However, investigators found no evidence on the devices that Kohberger had known the victims, Gilbertson said, debunking reports that the killer had photos and the social media accounts of some of the victims on his phone. 'To this date, we have never found a single connection – anything – between any of the four victims or the other two surviving roommates with him. No pictures, no texts,' Gilbertson said. Kohberger pleaded guilty earlier this month to the murders of Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Madison Mogen after spending years insisting he was innocent. The deal with prosecutors, which has received polarized reactions from the victims' families, allowed him to skirt a trial and took the death penalty off the table. Though the sentence has allowed police to release a trove of investigative documents that provide desperately-sought insight into the crime, Gilbertson and Dahlinger agreed there is one question that may never be answered: Why did he do it? What is clear to investigators, according to Gilbertson, is that Kohberger was 'very consumed' with criminology and the psychology around murder. Though investigators are confident a knife was used to kill all four victims, Goncalves was struck in the face by an unknown object and the extent of her struggle with Kohberger is still unknown, Gilbertson said. 'It certainly appears something else struck her to cause the marks that we saw that is not consistent with a fist,' Gilbertson said. There is also no evidence she was bound or gagged, he added. A recently released preliminary autopsy report found each of the victims had suffered 'sharp force injuries' – though Goncalves also had 'asphyxial injures' and 'blunt force injuries.' She had been stabbed more than 20 times, the document says, though her father said after the killer's sentencing Wednesday she had been stabbed more than 30 times. The knife, which investigators believe was a Ka-Bar knife, has also not been found. A tan, leather sheath for one such weapon containing Kohberger's DNA was found at the scene of the killings. Goncalves's sister addressed Kohberger during Wednesday's sentencing, telling him, 'If you hadn't attacked them in their sleep, in the middle of the night like a pedophile, Kaylee would have kicked your fucking ass.' As Kohberger was fatally stabbing Goncalves and Mogen on the third floor of the home, prosecutors have said they believe Kernodle was still awake on the floor below. Gilbertson said she was likely eating food she'd had delivered after a late night out. 'We believe that she heard something going on upstairs and at least started in that direction. But we don't know how far she got, or whether she went up the stairs or all the way up the stairs,' Gilbertson said. Kernodle was stabbed more than 50 times, and many of her wounds were defensive, the autopsy said, indicating she tried to fight off her attacker. Chapin, her boyfriend, was asleep in her bedroom and Kohberger killed him as well, prosecutors have said. 'She fought. She fought back and she fought hard,' Dahlinger said. As she resisted Kohberger, 'The fight just continued,' Gilbertson added. Jeff Kernodle, Xana's father, said on Wednesday that he almost went to his daughter's home on the night she was killed. But he had been drinking, and she told him not to drink and drive. Now, he said on Wednesday, he wishes that he had. 'You would have had to deal with me,' he told Kohberger in court. Before her death, Goncalves had expressed fears that she was being followed, and investigators have said her death elicited hundreds of tips and pieces of information about her having a stalker. Gilbertson confirmed her fears were correct. 'Somebody had followed her, and I know Kaylee absolutely felt that it was real. We investigated that heavily, we tracked down every bit of it,' Gilberson said. 'Fortunately, it was not what we would term or think of as stalking.' Someone had followed Goncalves but never contacted her, he said. 'It ended up being an instance where somebody saw a very pretty girl and was hoping to maybe be able to talk to her, or maybe be able to get a date or something,' Gilbertson said. In December 2022, police said investigators had identified an incident in October in which two men were seen at a business and one man appeared to follow Goncalves inside and as she exited to her car. The man did not make contact with her. Investigators contacted both men and learned they were trying to meet women at the business. Detectives said they believe this was an isolated incident and not a pattern of stalking. There was no evidence to suggest the men were involved in the killings, they said. CNN's Eric Levenson, Dakin Andone, Maureen Chowdhury and Antoinette Radford contributed to this report.
Yahoo
35 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Tornado Cash investor slams prosecutors eyeing ‘unprecedented' new charges
Federal prosecutors could charge executives at crypto venture firm Dragonfly Capital in connection with its 2020 investment in Tornado Cash developer Peppersec Inc, an assistant US attorney reportedly said Friday. That prompted a swift rebuke from one of the firm's managing partners, who said the company stood by its investment and called the prospect 'outrageous.' 'We made this investment because we believe in the importance of open-source privacy-preserving technology,' Managing Partner Haseeb Qureshi said on X on Friday. 'Charging a venture firm for a portfolio company's alleged misconduct would be unprecedented.' Attorneys for Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm want to call Dragonfly Managing Partner Tom Schmidt as a witness in Storm's criminal trial, which began last week in New York. But Schmidt, apparently facing the spectre of prosecution, has said he intends to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, according to Storm's attorneys. 'Are you looking at possibly prosecuting everyone at Dragonfly?' Judge Katherine Polk Failla asked federal prosecutor Thane Rehn on Friday during a back-and-forth over Schmidt's potential testimony, according to a post from Inner City Press. 'Not everyone,' Rehn reportedly replied. Tornado Cash allows users to cloak the movement of crypto from one wallet to another. Its users include people who want to maintain their privacy on the blockchain, as well as cybercriminals who have used it to launder stolen crypto. Prosecutors have charged Storm with conspiracy to commit money laundering, operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business, and violate US sanctions. He faces more than 40 years in prison. Dragonfly invested $882,000 in Peppersec in August 2020, according to a document unveiled in court on Thursday. Qureshi said Friday that Dragonfly 'obtained an outside legal opinion that confirmed that Tornado Cash as built complied with the law.' Private messages At Storm's trial Thursday, prosecutors shared a series of private messages between the Tornado Cash founders and Dragonfly executives. The executives advised the founders on their business plans, including a proposal to re-create Tornado Cash with anti-money laundering features, the messages show. Two days before investing in Tornado Cash, Qureshi urged Storm to create a three-year vesting schedule for the founders' tokens. 'You don't want to spook the market,' Qureshi said. '2 years is on the small side these days for founder lockups.' In February 2022, Storm asked Schmidt to urge holders of the Tornado Cash token to vote to introduce a 'relay registry' — a protocol feature that was key to some of Storm's alleged crimes, prosecutors say. Later that year, governments began to scrutinise privacy-enhancing crypto protocols such as Tornado Cash, and the founders began to implement changes to limit its use by cybercriminals. In April, the founders changed the Tornado Cash website to block crypto wallets sanctioned by the US. A month later, Storm told Dragonfly executives the Peppersec team was 'brainstorming an idea.' 'Privacy for blockchain with full compliance,' Storm said in a message in a group chat that included Qureshi and Schmidt. 'Has to be under new brand name, basically fork of Tornado Cash but with KYC/AML in it.' Qureshi said he was 'not a fan' of the idea. 'Legally it seems fine, but I just don't know if anyone will actually want this,' he said. 'Market need seems quite thin.' Dragonfly cooperation Tornado Cash was sanctioned by the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control that August. (Those sanctions were lifted this year after Ethereum developer Preston Van Loon and other Tornado Cash users successfully sued the Treasury Department.) 'Despite public assurances otherwise, Tornado Cash has repeatedly failed to impose effective controls designed to stop it from laundering funds for malicious cyber actors on a regular basis,' Treasury official Brian Nelson said in a statement. Storm was arrested a year later. Despite living in Washington State, the software engineer is being tried in the Southern District of New York. Prosecutors say that by communicating with Schmidt while the executive was in New York, Storm committed his alleged crimes in the district. 'We always encouraged our portfolio companies to follow the law, and we maintain that Tornado Cash itself has a lawful right to exist—a view reinforced by Van Loon v. Department of the Treasury and OFAC's subsequent rescission of sanctions,' Qureshi said Thursday. Dragonfly received a government subpoena in 2023 and has 'fully cooperated' with the government's investigation of Roman Storm since, according to Qureshi. He added that prosecutors have 'made clear' the venture firm was not a target of their investigation. 'We believe the government's statement in court today was primarily to undermine a defense of Tornado Cash—to make it more difficult for the defense to call Tom to testify on the stand,' Qureshi said. 'After all of this time—years later—bringing charges against Dragonfly would be outrageous, contrary to the facts and the law, and would induce a chilling effect onto all investment into crypto and privacy-preserving technologies in America.' Aleks Gilbert is DL News' New York-based DeFi Correspondent. Reach out to him with tips at aleks@ Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
35 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Former congressman George Santos begins seven-year prison sentence
Disgraced former congressman George Santos has reported to prison to begin a more than seven-year sentence for wire fraud, identity theft and other charges. The federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed to the BBC on Friday that Santos was in custody at the Federal Correctional Institution in Fairton, New Jersey. The 37-year-old pleaded guilty to federal charges in New York court last year. It marked the downfall of the novice New York politician, who was expelled from Congress after the fraud case alleged that he lied about his background and misused campaign funds to finance a luxury lifestyle. In a post on X before he reported to prison, Santos said his "rhinestones are packed". "I may be leaving the stage (for now), but trust me legends never truly exit," he wrote. The federal government alleged Santos laundered campaign funds to pay for his personal expenses, illegally claimed unemployment benefits while he was employed and lied to the Federal Election Commission (FEC). Prosecutors said he charged more than $44,000 (£32,000) to his campaign over a period of months using credit cards belonging to contributors who were unaware they were being defrauded. In court last year, Santos admitted to theft and applying for unemployment benefits that he was not entitled to receive. He was also ordered to pay at least $374,000 in restitution. After his sentencing in April, Santos attempted to raise money on Cameo, a platform where people can purchase personalised videos from celebrities. Santos gained attention when he defeated a Democratic incumbent in 2022, flipping a district that encompasses parts of New York's Long Island and Queens to the Republicans. The controversy began when the New York Times published a story that year revealing Santos - who had no background in politics - had lied about his CV, including having a university degree and working for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. It was not long before a series of new lies came to light, including that he falsely claimed his mother survived the 11 September terrorist attacks. Shortly after, local and federal officials launched investigations into the congressman. Santos was eventually charged with 23 federal felony crimes and in 2023 he became the first member of Congress to be expelled in more than 20 years, and only the sixth in history. Ex-congressman George Santos sentenced to seven years in prison George Santos expelled from Congress in historic vote
