Man acquitted of aggravated assault in fight over friend’s dog

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After he was acquitted for his part in a fight over a friend’s dog, Wesley Berman got some sound, blunt advice.

“Mr. Berman, you are extremely fortunate that this did not reach a far more tragic outcome,” said Superior Court Justice Kelly Tranquilli, who found Berman, 26, not guilty of aggravated assault and that the Crown hadn’t proved Berman wasn’t defending himself when he stabbed Justin Stiles twice in the abdomen, causing serious injuries.

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“Agreed,” said Berman quietly while standing ram-rod straight at the defence table in a London court.

“I hope you have listened very carefully to my words. You did not get a pass from me. I appreciate you were in very difficult circumstances,” the judge said.

Those circumstances were examined at a trial this year about an ill-fated confrontation between Berman and Stiles over a labradoodle named Cora in an Old East Village apartment on Sept. 16, 2019. At issue were conflicting accounts given by Stiles, who had the dog, and Berman, who went to the apartment with a court order to retrieve the dog for Stiles’ ex-girlfriend.

The bare-bones facts of the case were not in dispute. Stiles kept the dog at his apartment at Dundas and English streets, despite a court order the sheriff had tried several times to deliver. He was also two months behind in his rent.

The ex-girlfriend found out the building’s property manager and new landlord were going to serve eviction papers on Stiles. She was the complainant in an assault charge on Stiles, so she asked Berman if he would go with her current boyfriend to get Cora.

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Berman met up with the ex-girlfriend and her partner in the London police parking lot and the two men headed to Stiles’ building, where they met the property manager and the new landlord. In Berman’s pocket was a hunting knife he’d found in a tow truck he’d just bought.

The four people went up stairs to the security door leading to the second-floor apartment. The property manager texted Stiles to let them in and he responded that he wasn’t home.

It took 20 minutes to open the security door, but eventually, all four were at Stiles’s door. The landlord and property manager went in with the eviction notice, while Berman and the new boyfriend followed with the court papers.

The landlord and the property manager left the apartment while Berman waited at the open door and the new boyfriend lingered in the small hallway. Cora could be heard barking in the background of cellphone videos. The standoff lasted at least 20 minutes.

Stiles testified he was frightened by what was happening. He claimed he didn’t know about the court order and didn’t know Berman. He called police and his paralegal handling his separation from the former girlfriend. Then, he decided for his own safety to push Berman out of the unit and shut the door.

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But he said Berman pulled Stiles on top of him with one hand and stabbed him with the other. Stiles went back to his apartment, realized he was stabbed, then went outside where he received treatment and was taken to hospital.

Berman testified that Stiles screamed at them when they got to the apartment, put the dog in a separate room, then pushed them out the door. Berman called police while standing on the threshold as Stiles was calling police, too.

After waiting, Stiles suddenly lunged and threatened to break Berman’s arm, Berman said. Stiles tackled him at the top of the stairs just outside the apartment and Berman used the knife because he was in fear of his own safety.

Tranquilli was able to piece together much of what happened through the brief cellphone clips and security video. Though they didn’t show the full fight, they favoured Berman’s version.

The entire incident, about eight seconds long, included Stiles saying he was  going to “kick his ass.” Various camera angles showed Berman being pushed out the door, Stiles suddenly lunging at him, throwing Berman to the floor then pushing him to the top of the stairs. There was a fleeting view of the knife in Berman’s hand as he is pushed. Stiles could be seen kneeling near Berman, then getting up and going back to his apartment.

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Stiles’ testimony “is not worthy of belief. He was evasive and proved to have difficulty with the truth,” Tranquilli said.

She said she had “great difficulty” with some of his assertions. And he also said he was fearful, but “his demeanour is aggressive . . . . His conduct is not consistent with fear.”

Tranquilli said the video shows Stiles wasn’t just shutting the door, but rushed Berman and threatened to break his arm.

The judge had issues with Berman’s account as well, noting he “was talkative to a fault and somewhat disorganized in his train of thought at times.”

He gave an hour-long police statement and lengthy testimony at trial. But he didn’t tell police he handed the knife to a building tenant when he went back to look for his cellphone. And he was full of bravado about stabbing Stiles in online messages, while being contrite with the police.

Tranquilli concluded “Mr. Berman was well-intentioned in wanting to assist his friend, but was also naïve and was soon in over his head in a situation with an individual that he did not know.”

Stiles, she said, initiated the attack and the Crown didn’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt “that Mr. Berman’s conduct was unreasonable in the circumstances.”

“I hope you have learned from this and you will govern yourself accordingly in the future. I wish you well and I hope I do not see you in a courtroom again,” Tranquilli told Berman.

“You won’t,” an obviously relieved Berman said.

jsims@postmedia.com

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