Chrysler held workplace meetings Wednesday and has set up a hotline for anonymous tips after three ropes tied into nooses were found at the Windsor Assembly Plant in recent days.

LouAnn Gosselin, spokeswoman for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles Canada, said the company has responded to the seemingly racially motivated incidents by holding a series of meetings with workers inside the plant.

At the meetings, workers were urged to share any information about the possible perpetrator on a hotline the company has set up. Gosselin said the company prefers the number be shared only with workers in the plant and not be published.

• Hang noose incidents investigated at Windsor Assembly Plant
• Another noose found at Windsor Assembly Plant
• Reader letter: Van plant noose doesn’t reflect workforce tolerance
• Anne Jarvis: Racial terrorism
• Mike Graston’s Colour Cartoon For Wednesday, April 1, 2015

The minivan plant has been on shut down during a massive retooling. About 2,000 workers who don’t normally work at the plant, including members of the Labour International Union of North America, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and independent contractors, are involved in the $2-billion retooling.

Three nooses have been left in the area where a 52-year-old black man works.

Workers at the plant, speaking on the condition of anonymity Wednesday, said they were aghast to learn the incidents had taken place.

“It’s disturbing,” said one man, an American worker in his third of four weeks at the plant. He said the first he heard of the incidents was at Wednesday’s meeting.

“I was shocked to hear it.”

Another man, an independent contractor from the U.S. overseeing the installation of new equipment, said he was appalled.

“It’s being taken very seriously,” he said. “It’s being taken as a threat.”

The suspected target is a member of LIUNA. The nooses were all discovered in the man’s work area. He was not on the job when the last one was found.

Rob Petroni, business manager for LIUNA Local 625, said at Wednesday’s meetings that the company stressed the incidents are unacceptable and that it is intent on finding the culprit.

A project engineer, who works for the company that designed and built equipment being installed in the plant, had high praise for how FCA is handling the issue.

“The management team here is addressing it properly,” he said.

Nooses are a racially charged symbol dating back to the days of slavery in the United States.

At Duke University in Durham, N.C., Wednesday, students including members of the school’s Black Student Alliance held a march to protest a noose found hanging on campus. According to the Associated Press, the noose was hung outside a building that houses the offices of the Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity and the Center for Multicultural Affairs.

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Robert Joseph Cobb is a pimp.

In 2013, he enticed a 16-year-old runaway to become a prostitute. He told her it was “easy money,” and that she could stop at any time.

He lied.

Cobb, 23, pleaded guilty Thursday to making money from human trafficking. As part of the plea bargain, charges of human trafficking, assault, forcible confinement and extortion will be withdrawn.

In February 2013, Cobb met a young ward of the Children’s Aid Society. The girl was a “habitual runaway,” without a family on which to rely, assistant Crown attorney Kim Bertholet told the court.

The girl became infatuated with Cobb. While he was already in a relationship with the mother of one of his children, he led the girl on.

One day in May, he told the girl to meet him at a McDonald’s.

There, court heard, he used her laptop to introduce her to a prostitution website called backpages.com.

He convinced her it wouldn’t be hard to have sex for money. She agreed to try it.

Cobb created an ad, using a false picture and a false name. He decided what sexual services the girl would perform and the rates – oral sex, vaginal sex, anal sex and sex without a condom.

A couple days into her new profession, the girl wanted out.

Cobb at first played on the girl’s emotions, telling her he wanted to have a life with her. She only had to turn a few more tricks, until they had enough money to afford an apartment of their own.

Later, he resorted to threats, then violence.

Cobb was new to the pimping game, but he knew enough to take precautions.

He never allowed the girl to leave home alone. Cobb and the girl lived with Cobb’s father on Dougall Avenue. Cobb wasn’t using the money the girl made to pay the rent. They were eventually evicted.

They lived in seedy hotels the girl was never allowed to leave. The rooms were paid for with her earnings.

Immediately after each trick, the girl was made to turn over her earnings to one of Cobb’s three friends. The friends, who also made a cut, would then deliver the cash to Cobb.

“That was to insulate him in case they got caught,” Bertholet said.

The girl estimated she slept with 90 men in the ensuing two months. She earned about $31,000, but was not allowed to keep a dime. Cobb got a car out of the deal. The girl, meanwhile, was barely fed.

The girl, malnourished and injured, was rescued in July 2013 after she made contact with a former boyfriend who called police.

Cobb was charged along with Cody Last, 21. Last pleaded guilty in the case and was sentenced last year to 43 days in jail on top of the 47 days he’d already spent behind bars.

Bertholet said Last is a more sympathetic character. He didn’t lure the girl into prostitution, nor did he ever use violence on her. And, at least, he would buy the girl food from time to time.

Cobb is pleading guilty much later. His show of remorse comes after a preliminary hearing at which he was ordered to stand trial. His victim was made to testify at that preliminary hearing.

The girl – now 18, with a tiny frame and long, brown hair – read a victim-impact statement in court Thursday. Her brief statement demonstrated competing sentiments of betrayal and guilt.

The girl said Cobb’s friends and family replaced the people missing in her own life.

“I felt like these people were all I had,” she said. Her loyalty to Cobb was still evident, she said.

“I feel (he) hates me for telling the truth.”

The girl came into the courtroom flanked with support workers. In her statement, the girl said she had met “wonderful” people since Cobb’s arrest. “It helped me realize I deserve so much better.”

Her identity is protected by a publication ban.

Cobb has five prior convictions – three for assault. He spent a month in jail before being released on bail, then was rearrested last June for vandalizing a car.

Defence lawyer Matthew Longay asked Superior Court Justice Kirk Munroe to give Cobb enhanced credit of 412 days for the time he has already spent behind bars, for a total sentence of 12 to 15 months.

The Crown is seeking four years.

Cobb’s sentencing hearing continues next week.

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Essex candidate Bill Baker will be barred from running in the next municipal election and can’t serve on any town committee after overspending on his failed bid for the mayor’s seat.

Baker has been found “in default” according to the Municipal Elections Act after spending $304 more than allowed by law in the 2014 municipal election.

The overspending was discovered after Baker submitted mandatory audited campaign statements with the town.

“It’s unfortunate,” Baker said in an interview Tuesday. “I take full responsibility.”

According to a strict formula, Essex’s mayoral candidates were allowed to spend a maximum of $20,616 on their campaigns. Baker spent $20,920.

If Baker had been elected mayor, he would have lost his seat for breaking the spending rules.

Baker said he tried to carefully monitor spending during his campaign. “I was running all out. The odd invoice squeaks through that you don’t catch.”

The town sent Baker an official notice of default. A copy could be found on the town’s website Tuesday.

Municipal clerk Cheryl Bondy said, while it’s her responsibility to oversee the election, she can’t bend the rules, even for small amounts of overspending like Baker’s.

“I have no discretion at all.”

She explained that the spending limit comprises a $7,500 base amount, plus 85 cents for each eligible elector. The formula is based on the number of electors as of nomination day or the number from the previous election — whichever is greater.

Bondy said the sanctions against Baker are automatic under the Elections Act. If someone complains, alleging corruption, Baker could be brought before the courts where greater penalties are available. Those penalties include fines equal to the amount of overspending and a longer prohibition on running for office.

Criminal charges are also possible.

No one has filed such a complaint against Baker, Bondy said.

Baker surpassed his spending limit by less than 1.5 per cent.

“The Municipal Elections Act is unforgiving,” said political scientist Lydia Miljan, an associate professor at the University of Windsor.

The Act is designed to regulate candidates, Miljan explained.

“In defence of the Act, if they can’t follow the rules, how can we trust them with the big picture stuff.”

Despite spending the most money on his campaign, Baker ran third in a hotly contested mayoral race.

Incumbent Ron McDermott won re-election, spending $7,080 on his campaign. Ron Rogers, who finished second, spent $8,986.

Fewer than 400 votes separated the three candidates. McDermott garnered 2,619 votes to Rogers’s 2,392 and Baker’s 2,200.

Baker was formerly a councillor for Ward 3.

Baker, who runs his own public relations firm and is the spokesman for Leamington District Memorial Hospital, still lives in the ward. He recently purchased the harbour restaurant in Colchester and Windsor Essex Trolley Tours.

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The province’s police watchdog is investigating a senior Windsor police officer in relation to an alleged sexual assault earlier this month.

A vehicle marked Special Investigations Unit mobile unit and several police cruisers were at the Amherstburg home of Windsor police Const. Mark Stock Friday. Stock, a police officer of about 30 years, lives on Scott Drive.

SIU spokeswoman Monica Hudon said Monday she could not confirm the name of the officer under investigation, but did say, “The SIU is investigating a Windsor police officer in relation to a sexual assault allegation that is alleged to have happened in early April.”

The complainant is a 24 year old woman, Hudon said.

She said the SIU was called in by Windsor police.

A brusque Windsor police Chief Al Frederick Monday refused to comment. “I am not confirming anything. That’s the law, by the way.”

The SIU is an independent, civilian agency that must be notified by police when an officer is involved in incidents where someone has been seriously injured, dies or alleges sexual assault. The SIU can initiate criminal charges against police officers.

Stock has been in trouble with his superiors in recent years relating to his handling of an acrimonious divorce. Stock was reprimanded and docked nine days’ pay for misusing police resources after sending a letter to his ex-wife’s lawyer from a Windsor police fax machine.

Stock subsequently sent his ex-wife an angry email blaming her for his reprimand. She showed the email to Stock’s superiors and Frederick had Stock charged with discreditable conduct at a Police Act hearing. Stock was found guilty in 2013 and docked another five days’ pay, but was vindicated on appeal to the Ontario Civilian Police Commission. OCPC overturned the decision and Windsor police was forced to reimburse Stock for five days’ wages.

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The sun had just risen over John’s Pond in the city’s east end. The creek nearby was flowing, swollen with spring run-off. Birds sang the promise of warmer days ahead.

Leonard Reaume’s dog, a frisky boxer named Zoey, chased rabbits through the tangle of naked shrubs and fallen tree limbs.

This is a morning routine.

Every day, Reaume, a GM trim plant retiree, and his wife, Pat, walk one of the paths that meander from McHugh Park near the WFCU Centre to the Ganatchio Trail. Like many others, they often leave the paved walkways to the cyclists and joggers, and, mud underfoot, head into the woods.

It was there on March 19 that Reaume made a bone-chilling discovery.

“He was hanging right over the trail. At first, I thought it was a mannequin. I thought it was a joke, some kids playing a joke,” Reaume said. “I got closer and I saw real skin.”

WINDSOR, ON. APRIL 15, 2015. — Leonard Reaume stands under a tree recently along an east Windsor trail where he found a body hanging from a tree last month. It has yet to be identified and police are still seeking the public’s help to determine the man’s identity. (TYLER BROWNBRIDGE/The Windsor Star)

A man had hanged himself from a thick, arching branch, a white, cotton rope tied into a perfect hangman’s knot.

Four weeks have passed. His identity remains a mystery.

There was no identification in the man’s pockets, no abandoned car nearby, said Windsor police Const. Andrew Drouillard.

“There were no signs of foul play. It wasn’t suspicious in nature.”

As is their policy, police aren’t calling it a suicide, but rather, “a sudden death.”

Police put out a news release asking for the public’s help to identify the man. He is Caucasian, with blue eyes and a shaved head. He is 30 to 40 years old, about six feet tall and has a round scar roughly the size of a quarter on his right shoulder.

Next, police released a photograph of what the man was wearing – a navy blue windbreaker, black jogging pants and a black tuque – and the bright white New Balance running shoes found near the base of the tree.

Finally, enlisting a sketch artist, police released drawings of the man’s face.

Still nothing.

Drouillard said investigators compared the man’s fingerprints to databases in Canada and the United States. “We know he has no criminal record,” Drouillard said.

They’ve plugged identifying information gathered at autopsy to missing persons registries near and far, including the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System managed out of Texas.

There are no matches.

Enter Dr. Kathy Gruspier, forensic anthropologist at the Ontario Forensic Pathology Service in Toronto.

Gruspier’s office, funded by the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services, performs one final analysis on all the John and Jane Does in the province. The body of the man found on the East Windsor trail has been shipped to her.

For unidentified bodies like this one, Gruspier’s office is the last stop before the grave.

“We’re going to make sure we have all the information possible, then we’ll give him a burial.”

In the next day or so, Gruspier will examine the body. She will “remove bits of skeleton” and analyze them to get a better estimate of the man’s age. She will examine his body hair to determine what his hair colour was before his head was shaved.

Gruspier said she has already reviewed the dental charting and full body CT-scan undertaken by the coroner’s office in London. She will look for further evidence of surgeries – does he have his appendix, has he been circumcised – then input all the information into a database.

Key pieces will be published on public websites like missing-u.ca and canadasmissing.ca, Gruspier said.

“We are going to continue to look. We are not going to write him off.”

Usually, bodies are identified within three weeks, never requiring Gruspier’s expertise. But sometimes, they remain unidentified even after she does her work.

Last year, there were three such cases, Gruspier said. The year before that, there were four.

“Not everyone gets reported missing, you know,” Gruspier said. “Our database goes back 50 years. We have 230 unidentified bodies.”

Gruspier recalls a Barrie case that took nine years to solve. “Sometimes people die far from home,” she said. The last body on her office’s database to be identified was of a man who had hung himself in Peel Region. He turned out to be from Latvia.

Reaume has heard all the steps police have taken to identify the man.

“How can this be a mystery?”

Reaume then tells an extraordinary story. This is the second time in his life he has come across a man who has hanged himself.

When Reaume, now 66, was a boy, the man next door committed suicide. “We lived on Westcott,” he said, of the road not far from the Ford test track. It was the era of door-to-door milk deliveries. The neighbour, a recent widower, had his bottle from the day or two before still sitting on the porch .

Reaume, perhaps eight years old then, spotted a door ajar and went to investigate. There was his neighbour, dead in the barn.

Perhaps that experience prepared him for what he found on the trail last month.

He called 911, then stayed on his cellphone to direct police to the proper trail.

He walks the path some days, his eyes drawn up to the rope mark still visible on the bark.

“Somebody’s got to be missing this man,” Reaume said. “He didn’t just fall out of the sky.”

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A teenaged thief who left his fingerprints at the scene of a rash of residential break-ins in Tecumseh last year was sentenced Friday to two years on probation.

Residents on St. Mark’s Road awoke May 26, 2014 to find their homes, garages and cars had been burglarized. The targets were all within a three-block area, and included a home on Willow Court and nearby Lakeview Montessori School on Riverside Drive, which was vandalized with graffiti.

Police, at the time, said the homes and cars had been left unlocked.

Most of the items taken included mundane things like cellphone chargers, sunglasses, air conditioners and cleaning supplies. But the thief pleaded guilty to taking two re-issued vintage electric guitars — one that police later recovered at a local pawn shop.

The boy’s fingerprints were found at the scene of one of the break-ins. His fingerprints were on file with the police from a previous conviction.

The boy, now 18, but 17 at the time of the crimes, cannot be identified due to a standard publication ban under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. He pleaded guilty to a single count of break and enter with intent to commit theft.

Court heard the boy lives with his father. Neither of his parents appeared in court with him Friday.

The boy was charged along with Adamo Romeo Mollica, 22.

Mollica’s case is still before the courts.

During his probation, the boy cannot have any contact with Mollica. He must abide by an 11 p.m. curfew and can’t ever go to St. Mark’s Road. Police will take a sample of his blood for the national DNA databank used to solve crimes.

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A Windsor man who kicked and punched his live-in girlfriend until her face resembled something out of a horror movie pleaded guilty Tuesday to aggravated assault.

Ronald Milton Morgan, 42, pounded on the woman for 90 minutes despite the fact she had brain cancer and was awaiting surgery. Elizabeth Bedford told the court Tuesday that her surgery had to be delayed because her head was so swollen after the attack.

The altercation began at 7:30 a.m. June 28 while Bedford was asleep on the couch of the Walker Road home the couple shared. Morgan asked Bedford for beer money. When Bedford refused, Morgan began, first whipping her with a denim jacket, then began raining blows down on her body and kicking her in the head. He forced a cellphone in her mouth and attempted to ram it down her throat.

Morgan was on probation at the time, having been convicted just two months earlier of assaulting Bedford.

As a bloodied Bedford lay on the floor, her eyes swollen shut, Morgan told her, “If you put me in prison, I’ll break your bones.”

A neighbour who came to the door after the attack called police. In a vain attempt to avoid arrest, Morgan told police Bedford had run into a wall.

Bedford took the witness stand at Morgan’s guilty plea hearing in Superior Court Tuesday and told of how she was planning to surprise Morgan with a gift and that’s why she didn’t want to give him money.

“That day I was buying him a bike,” she said. “A brand new bike.”

The woman can’t walk unassisted. Her balance and mobility issues are a result of the attack, assistant Crown attorney Walter Costa told the court.

Bedford gets frequent headaches, is sensitive to light and suffers from memory loss.

She lost three teeth and has a permanent indentation in her skull where hair will no longer grow. She has nerve damage that makes the left side of her head tender to the touch.

Bedford said she lived at Hiatus House for 10 weeks. “I was afraid of it happening again even though I knew he was locked up.”

Morgan had, at first, pleaded not guilty to the assault. A preliminary hearing was held in Ontario court and Morgan was scheduled for a four-day trial next month.

At the request of defence lawyer Ken Marley, Superior Court Justice Bruce Thomas ordered a psychiatric report on Morgan and ordered that a probation officer write a background report on him for sentencing. Morgan’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for July.

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A Tecumseh woman police say was driving her Mercedes-Benz at more than double the speed limit on Highway 401 earlier this month made her first court appearance this week.

Anna Riley, 47, faces a charge of stunt driving.

Police say Riley had been driving 220 km/h in the eastbound lane of Highway 401 when she was stopped near Harwich Road, just east of Chatham. Her licence was suspended and her car impounded.

Riley’s case will be back in provincial offences court in Chatham next month.

Penalties for stunt driving include fines of $2,000 to $10,000 and licence suspensions of two years on a first conviction.

Riley operates a furniture store and mattress manufacturing company that bear her family name.

Five infamous former Toronto police drug squad officers — including one who has started a new life in the Windsor area — have had their appeal dismissed by the province’s highest court.

Ned Maodus and former fellow officers John Schertzer, Steven Correia, Joseph Miched and Raymond Pollard were convicted in 2012 of attempting to obstruct justice. Maodus, who moved back to Essex County, Correia and Pollard were additionally convicted of perjury.

The five men appealed their convictions. The Ontario Court of Appeal this week dismissed their case.

The case involved an illegal search of a drug dealer’s apartment back in 1998. A jury found the officers falsified their notes and lied on the witness stand to hide the fact they had gone into the apartment without a search warrant.

The men were sentenced in 2013 to 45 days on house arrest. The sentence was an anticlimatic end to a 15-year odyssey that began with accusations of conspiracy, extortion, theft and assault related to a number of cases. The case included one stay of prosecution because of the amount of time it took to bring the officers to trial. The province appealed the stay and won a new trial, which lasted six months in 2012.

While the former officers appealed their convictions, the Crown appealed the 45-day sentence they were handed. The appeal court agreed the short sentence was “demonstrably unfit,” and substituted a three-year jail sentence. But the longer sentence will be on paper only. The court said, because of the passage of time, the three-year-sentence is stayed.

Maodus’s lawyer, Patrick Ducharme, declined comment.

Maodus, whom court has heard suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder from his career in policing, has a prior criminal record. After moving back to the Windsor area, Maodus was convicted in 2012 of uttering a death threat against his former wife. He was handed a suspended sentence. In 2007, he was sentenced to a year on house arrest for an incident in Orangeville which saw him convicted of assault causing bodily harm, uttering threats and pointing a firearm.

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The parents of the teenaged girl killed after last year’s wine festival in Amherstburg have sent letters saying they intend to sue the festival and even the property owners where she crashed her car.

A lawyer for Christian and Kimberley Bernauer has put the Shores of Erie International Wine Festival, Colio Estate Wines, Sobeys and a Con. 2 couple on notice that they “intend to commence an action.”

The letter, dated Feb. 6, goes on to instruct the seven parties to contact their insurers. “Please consider this letter as formal notice under our clients’ intention to seek damages, interest and costs.”

Emily Bernauer, 18, died in a single-car rollover Sept. 6. She crashed after leaving the Amherstburg festival where she had been working at Sobeys’ booth.

Police say, in addition to alcohol in her bloodstream, Bernauer had marijuana in her system and may have been texting at the time of the crash. She was not wearing a seatbelt.

Gino Paciocco, lawyer for the Bernauers, said just because the letter was sent does not necessarily mean there will be a lawsuit.

“That’s just due diligence. We have to give them notice,” he said.

Paciocco said the Bernauers have not decided whether to sue.

No civil suit has yet been filed with the courts.

The Star has learned Emily Bernauer had been the driver in at least one other crash in the past. According to court records, she was fined $240 on Aug. 11 for failing to report damage she caused to public property. She had originally been charged with failing to remain at the scene of accident, but the charge was reduced in exchange for a guilty plea.

Despite her death, the courts automatically added a $20 fee when her fine went unpaid, then suspended her licence.

Paciocco said he was not aware of Emily Bernauer’s driving record.

Five volunteer directors on the festival committee — chairwoman Karen Gygory, vice-chairwoman Joanne DiPierdomenico, head of security Don Deslippe, logistics head Paul Mersch and longtime volunteer Anne Rota — have all been charged under the Liquor Licence Act with supplying liquor to a person under the age of 19. Rota’s husband Renato (Rennie), manager of the town’s Sobeys store, is facing the same charge.

The directors have all been represented by defence lawyer Patrick Ducharme. In provincial offences court Monday, Ducharme was removed as the lawyer for Anne Rota. She will join her husband in being represented by Andrew Bradie, court heard.

Ducharme did not appear in court Monday, instead sending a young lawyer from his office. Reached later in the day, Ducharme declined to comment.

Bradie could not be reached for comment.

The case comes back to court again next month.

The festival committee has announced that the event will be cancelled for the coming year. The festival’s two employees have been laid off.

The festival is also under investigation by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario.

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A Windsor lawyer has had his licence to practice law suspended indefinitely.

Robert Gregory Wylupek has lost his licence due to medical incapacity, according to a decision of a tribunal of the Law Society of Upper Canada, the regulatory body for lawyers in Ontario.

The law society will not consider reinstating his licence for at least six months providing Wylupek can show proof that he has met with a psychiatrist at least once a month. If his licence is reinstated at any time in the future, his trust accounts will be monitored by the law society for two years.

Wylupek has been a lawyer for 13 years.

He has lost his livelihood. His reputation is mud. He went from being a high-roller immigration consultant in expensive suits, to working as a bottled water salesman.

Fraudster Sam Burgio says he has been punished enough.

A Superior Court judge Monday disagreed.

Burgio, who bilked clients out of roughly $1 million through various schemes and lies between 2003 and 2010, was sentenced Monday to three years in a federal penitentiary.

He was also ordered to pay back all the money he swindled from people. He owes one man $300,000 US.

“His crimes have left a trail of devastation in their wake,” said Justice Renee Pomerance in passing sentence Monday.

Burgio showed “callous disregard” in exploiting people, the judge said.

He crushed their dreams.

Burgio promised prospective immigrants he would help them come to Canada. He charged them tens of thousands of dollars to process applications, then did nothing for them.

He told some clients he could speed up the process if they came up with money to prove they were willing to invest in Canada as entrepreneurial capitalists. So they did whatever they could to scrape together the cash, including taking out loans at ridiculously high interest rates in their home countries. The money would be held in trust, he told them. Instead, it went straight into his chequing account.

He delved into the migrant worker business, making contact with intermediaries overseas who lined up pools of prospective employees. When Burgio claimed Texas Instruments was hiring in Calgary, 40 people paid to become migrant workers. The money was funnelled through the intermediaries into Burgio’s pockets.

There were no such jobs.

The intermediaries repaid the victims. They lost their own savings, as well as their reputations and livelihoods back home.

Burgio’s schemes transcended the world of immigration. He told people he had a line on high-end vehicles seized by the government at Windsor’s border crossings. People paid him money for cars that did not exist.

Burgio didn’t feel too badly about it because those victims were rich, he told a probation officer tasked with writing a background report about him.

Burgio said his fraudulent activity began innocently enough. The economic downturn left him with cash-flow problems, so he started dipping into his trust account to pay bills.

In one of the many other explanations he offered the court, he said he felt an obligation to his staff to keep up the ruse of a prosperous business. He defrauded people to keep his staff employed, he said.

Then there was his gambling addiction. He called himself a “casual” gambler when he was first interviewed by the probation officer. Then, as his sentencing day approached, he claimed to be addicted. He was able to produce a report showing he was placing up to 31 bets a day on horse races.

The report spanned two years from 2009 to 2011. Burgio had been defrauding people long before that, the judge noted.

On his last court date, Burgio, 52, waxed eloquently about how he has finally realized the damage he has caused. He is responsible for the stress on his wife’s face, the shame he has brought on his family. Kids bring newspaper articles about him to school and taunt his three children with them. His teenage daughter gets vicious texts.

He said he was sorry.

The judge wasn’t so sure.

“I cannot help but wonder about the timing of this epiphany,” Pomerance said Monday. She said his remorse could be genuine, or it could just be “an attempt to secure leniency from the court.”

Burgio had hoped for a shorter sentence of less than two years he could serve on house arrest.

Pointing to decisions of higher courts, Pomerance said “sophisticated, calculated” schemes like Burgio’s call for sentences of three to five years.

Victims filed letters at earlier court appearances, but none turned up Monday. RCMP Const. Ab Deo, who was the lead investigator on the case, said many have been in regular contact with him.

“A lot of victims are frustrated with how long it’s taken,” Deo said.

Burgio was charged in 2010. He managed to delay the inevitable for nearly five years – dodging his lawyers until they dropped him delaying his case, then winning adjournments as he applied for legal aid. He remained free on bail.

Burgio was charged along with his wife, Maria Angela, 44. Charges against her were dropped Monday. She wept as he was led away to begin serving his sentence.

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The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board has managed to put a gag on Mike Spencer, but the vocal online critic says he won’t find it uncomfortable at all.

Spencer, 55, Wednesday was slapped with a narrow restraining order, preventing him from communicating directly or indirectly with Frank Brunato, WSIB’s corporate safety manager. The Crown was unsuccessful in attempting to get a court order preventing Spencer from posting comments about WSIB generally or its other 3,500 employees.

Justice of the peace Susan Whelan said her order could only protect Brunato because the Toronto man is the only one who signed onto the peace bond application. Other WSIB employees had been part of the original complaint to police, but either dropped their cases or didn’t start them at all.

Spencer, an injured worker who lives off a $610 monthly pension, started a Facebook page called “WSIB Kills People.” He believes injured workers commit suicide due to mistreatment by the government agency.

WSIB started monitoring the page in 2011. After Spencer posted harassing comments suggesting Brunato and his co-workers should be concerned for their lives, WSIB banned him from attending any its offices.

They went to police hoping to get Spencer charged with criminal harassment, but the local Crown’s office suggested a restraining order instead.

Spencer insists he was only giving WSIB employees a taste of what they put injured workers through. “Kinda sucks when your (sic) on the receiving end isn’t it,” he wrote to them in one post.

“I think you all need a lesson and I can’t think of anyone more qualified to give to you than me,” he wrote in another.

Another post read, “The time for talking is over.”

Whelan said Brunato had reason to be fearful of Spencer.

He claimed to know where Brunato lives and what he eats for breakfast.

“If Mr. Spencer had limited his comments to the government entity generally, we would not be here today,” Whelan said.

“There is no doubt Mr. Spencer has the right to free speech… but one can cross the line.”

For the next 12 months, Spencer can’t name Brunato in any online posts, Whelan said. She urged Spencer to consult his lawyers, but said, “You are not to direct anything to Mr. Brunato or mention his name.”

He can’t go within 100 metres of Brunato’s home or place of work and he can’t communicate directly or indirectly with Brunato’s spouse or children.

“That’s fine,” said Spencer after hearing the ruling. He said he made his comments to provoke a courtroom showdown with WSIB and won because of the publicity it garnered.

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The federal government announced Friday it will repair the façade of the Paul Martin building now that it has figured out a way to do it on the cheap.

The repairs will cost $6 million, Public Works and Government Services Canada said. Until now, government officials pegged the repair costs at $19 million.

“I’m baffled by this,” said Norm Becker, an engineer experienced in restoring historic buildings. “I don’t know where those numbers have come from.”

With his own eyes, Becker has seen government-commissioned reports on the building which pegged repair costs at $8 million to $10 million.

Becker said he was delighted to hear the government had decided to repair the building. But, he said, upon closer inspection, the government announcement raises serious questions and concern.

The announcement says the government will replace the limestone panels and reseal the joints with a flexible synthetic compound. This is 70 per cent cheaper than alternative methods, the announcement says. The mortar will be replaced, the limestone panels repaired and the steel brackets that support the façade shored up.

But, said Becker, the engineering reports on the building note problems with the brick wall behind the façade. This “backup wall,” as it’s called, is so loose, “you could remove the bricks by hand,” Becker said.

Becker used a colourful analogy to describe the condition of the façade and the wall behind it. “It’s like two drunks leaning up against each other. If one falls, they’re both going to fall.”

The government announcement says nothing about repairs to the backup wall.

“You cannot put wallpaper over cracks and that’s what this is tantamount to,” Becker said. “It’s fixing the skin without touching the bones and skeleton behind it.”

Becker said the federal government has botched repairs to the façade in the past, using too-hard Portland cement to replace mortar between the panels of softer, dolomitic limestone. Mortar must be softer than the stone it holds together, he explained, so the repair work caused more damage to the limestone.

Water has been getting in the cracks in the mortar, eroding the limestone and rusting the metal brackets that hold it in place. It’s a vicious cycle, Becker said, explaining that as the brackets rust, they expand, putting more pressure on the limestone façade.

In an interview earlier in the day, MP Jeff Watson said the repair project has been thoroughly vetted. “Officials have been looking at this for some time trying to find a technical solution.”

He said his understanding is the proposed repairs will shore up the façade and prevent water from seeping in behind it.

“It’s not just a repair but protection,” Watson said.

John Calhoun, Windsor’s heritage planner, said he doesn’t know enough about the repair techniques the federal government is proposing to gauge how appropriate they are. “Does it change the appearance in any way, now or in the future?” he asked. “Does it create a safe environment? Does it continue the use of the building for another generation or more?”

He said he would be interested to know if the proposed repair method meets the government’s own standards for the preservation of historic buildings.

“I’m hoping this is truly a good repair and it suits the building well.”

The six-storey building was completed in 1934 in the Beaux-Arts style popular at the time. It is one of 116 properties in Windsor designated under the Ontario Heritage Act.

Engineers began expressing concerns about the building 15 years ago. The federal government restored one side of the landmark building six years ago. It erected scaffolding on the other three sides to protect passersby from falling pieces of the façade.

Mayor Drew Dilkens said he is glad it appears the unsightly scaffolding will finally go away.

“I’m delighted they’re stepping up to the plate,” Dilkens said of the federal government. “Is it something that’s going to last? We are assured that $6 million fix is one that will last for a long time.”

The government still intends to sell the building, but couldn’t find a buyer given its current condition. “It has become clear that these repairs will be necessary to help facilitate the divestiture of the building,” the announcement says.

Watson said he has no idea whether the University of Windsor might still want the building for its law school or whether another buyer might now step forward. The government could sell the building, then lease it back from the buyer, Watson said.

“We’re not closed to the idea of being a long-term tenant of the building.”

Regardless, federal employees will stay in the downtown core, the government announcement says.

Watson said he is offended by the suggestion that the decision to fix the building’s façade — and the sudden drop in anticipated costs — is politically motivated.

The announcement comes nine days after city councillor Jo-Anne Gignac declared her candidacy for the Conservative nomination in Windsor-Tecumseh in the upcoming federal election.

“That is utter nonsense,” Watson said. He said the repair options were decided by “non-partisan civil servants,” not by politicians.

“I’ve been working very hard on this file,” he said. Despite not being the elected representative for the riding, Watson said preserving the building “really matters” to him. Looking for a political motive “demeans the work I’ve been doing.”

“This is very good news.”

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Windsor’s Nepalese community is holding a fundraising dinner tonight for its earthquake-stricken homeland.

The menu includes pasta, salad, potatoes, dessert and drinks. It will run from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Optimist Community Centre at 1075 Ypres Ave. Tickets are $15 at the door, but additional donations are appreciated. Proceeds will go the Canadian Red Cross. Tax receipts are available.

One of the event organizers is Gokul Bhandari, an information systems professor at the University of Windsor’s Odette School of Business who was born and raised in Nepal.

To donate without attending the event, contact Bhandari at gokul@uwindsor.ca.

More patients of Dr. Ravi Shenava have come forward accusing the Windsor psychiatrist of sexually assaulting them.

Last month, Shenava, 64, was arrested for the alleged sexual assault of one patient. On Monday, he was arrested again for alleged incidents involving four more patients.

“Detectives have continued their investigation and have identified four additional victims,” Windsor police said in a news release. All the alleged victims say the incidents took place while they were under the doctor’s care.

Shenava, whose full name is Ravishankar Thimangur Shenava, had previously been charged with a single count of sexual assault. On Monday, police laid nine more counts of sexual assault and one count of extortion.

The investigation into Shenava began Jan. 30, when a 28-year-old woman told police she had been sexually assaulted by her psychiatrist that day.

Police have offered no details about the other alleged victims.

Shenava has been licensed to practise in Ontario since 1988, according to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario. He got his specialty in psychiatry in 1987 after graduating from the University of Mysore in India in 1974. The college, the regulatory body for all physicians in the province, shows Shenava as a doctor in good standing with no past disciplinary complaints on his record.

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A local non-profit agency that offers counselling to troubled youth has turned to the Internet to preserve some of its programs.

Essex County Youth Diversion has started a gofundme campaign to continue teaching kids the hazards of sexting, abusing drugs and alcohol, peer pressure, bullying and stealing. Other programs teach kids how to make better decisions, how to handle anger and how to improve their self-esteem.

The counselling programs have been funded through the Ontario government’s Trillium Foundation. That one-time funding runs out in October.

“It’s a one-shot thing,” Joanna Conrad, Youth Diversion’s executive director, said of the funding. “They expect you to sustain your program on your own.”

Without donations to replace the funding would mean the end of the programs, she said. “It’s the only program of its kind in Windsor and Essex County… For us to lose that would be devastating.”

Youth Diversion used to offer programs only to young offenders referred to it from the courts. Those programs still exist, funded through the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General and the Ontario Ministry of Child and Youth Services.

But for the past two years, the agency has offered what it calls “outreach” programming to other 12- to 17-year-olds at risk of finding themselves in trouble with the law.

School principals who notice things like poor attendance, drug experimentation or dangerous sexual behaviours can refer students to the program. Other referrals come from police officers, other agencies, parents and guardians.

The program has offered counselling to about 200 kids in the past two years.

“This is the program to keep them from having contact with the law,” Conrad said. “It’s meant to stop kids in their tracks from heading down that path.”

Conrad said she could continue the outreach programs for the next year if she raises at least $70,000. The agency and its volunteer board of directors will seek corporate funding, but they’ve launched the online appeal as well.

The donation site can be found at gofundme.com/saveoutreach

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A Windsor man who repeatedly stabbed his ex-wife’s friend in the stomach was sentenced Wednesday to two years in jail.

Vincent Herlehy, 50, explained his behaviour on the night of May 4, 2013 was fuelled by alcohol. He hasn’t had a drop since. He told Superior Court Justice Renee Pomerance he takes full responsibility for what he did and has sought counselling for his alcohol addiction.

Herlehy was visiting his ex-wife at her Campbell Avenue home when her friend also stopped by. An argument ensued and Herlehy stabbed the then 47-year-old woman six times in the stomach and hand.

She was rushed to hospital where she underwent surgery. Herlehy fled the scene, but was caught by police officers after a foot chase.

Herlehy was to stand trial on a charge of attempted murder. He instead pleaded guilty to the less serious offence of aggravated assault.

Pomerance gave Herlehy credit for his guilty plea, which saved his victim from having to testify at trial.

Defence lawyer Evan Weber said Herlehy didn’t use alcohol as an excuse for his behaviour, but realized it was “a contributing factor” in his crime.

Assistant Crown attorney Jennifer Holmes joined the defence in asking for a two-year sentence.

“It’s our hope Mr. Herlehy continues with all the progress he has made and that this event will have some positive effect by changing his life for the better,” Holmes said.

Once he is released from jail, Herlehy will be on probation for 18 months.

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It had been a bad day for Tuan Anh Nguyen when, bruised and bleeding, he picked up his phone and dialed 911.

Little did he realize his day was about to get much worse.

Nguyen, 46, had a small marijuana grow operation in the basement of his McKay Avenue home. Police found it when they responded to his 911 call.

The man quickly went from being considered the victim of a violent crime, to being a criminal himself.

Nguyen’s lawyer, Paul Esco, tried to argue that police violated the man’s rights when they searched his home on Sept. 9, 2012. They didn’t have his permission or a warrant, Esco argued, so none of the evidence they collected against him should be admissible at trial.

Windsor Superior Court Justice Kirk Munroe in 2010. (Nick Brancaccio / The Windsor Star)

Superior Court Justice Kirk Munroe didn’t buy the argument. He ruled against Nguyen Friday, saying the search was “reasonable and necessary.”

Police responded to Nguyen’s ranch-style home after he dialed 911 complaining that someone had beaten him up and stolen his car. The house was dark when an officer with a police dog arrived. When Nguyen answered the door, his left eye was nearly swollen shut and he was bleeding from the mouth.

Blood from a stab wound in his foot was seeping through his sock.

Nguyen was evasive in answering questions about where he was attacked. He told the officer he might remember if he had a cigarette, so he went back into his house to get one.

Concerned that Nguyen had a head injury, the officer stepped inside the front door and watched him. She noticed the living room was in shambles. Cabinet drawers were ajar with their contents spilling out. Scissors, pill bottles and other items were strewn across the floor.

“Seeing the ransacked living room was the game changer,” Munroe said, in ruling that the officer did nothing illegal in searching the home.

The officer took Nguyen outside and called for backup.

Two other officers arrived. One stayed with Nguyen while the others checked the house, believing the man had interrupted a break-in and the perpetrator could still be inside.

The officers spotted things that gave them grave concern, the judge said. There were family photographs and a child’s bedroom with no one inside. There was fresh blood smeared on the wall. Nguyen’s family could have been held hostage inside, they feared.

In the basement, officers found tape with what looked like human hairs on it. Someone had been bound there. They found the grow-op, but the house was clear.

Police seized dozens of marijuana plants and more than 100 grams of the drug ready for sale. They also found a digital scale and packaging paraphernalia.

Nguyen was charged with drug offences including production of marijuana and possession of the drug for the purpose of trafficking.

He remains free on bail while his case proceeds to trial.

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