Last Updated: Friday - 09/24/2010

March 1, 2010

Lahey trial delayed until 2011

Former Antigonish prelate faces child porn charges

OTTAWA - Bishop Raymond Lahey's trial on charges of possessing and importing child pornography has been set for the spring of 2011.

The trial will begin April 26, 2011 and run until May 6, Assistant Crown Attorney David Elhadad said in an interview.

The former bishop of Antigonish, N.S., is not expected to appear in an Ottawa court until his trial starts in more than a year's time.

Lahey has been living in a retired priests' residence in the Ottawa Archdiocese since Oct. 9.

Police laid charges against the bishop Sept. 25. He had been stopped by a Canada Border Services Agent at the Ottawa airport 10 days earlier. After a preliminary search, his laptop and other electronic devices were seized.

Lahey resigned as bishop on Sept. 26. He turned himself into Ottawa police Oct. 1. He was released on a $9,000 bail and has surrendered his passport.

He was ordered to stay away from the Internet, computers or cellphones, and from children 18 and under.

On Oct. 13, the RCMP executed search warrants on Lahey's former residences and offices in Antigonish and Sydney, N.S. The electronic devices seized at that time are still under investigation by the Atlantic Integrated Technological Crime Unit.

Lahey is represented by high-profile Ottawa criminal lawyer Michael Edelson, who successfully defended Ottawa Mayor Larry O'Brien last year against charges of influence peddling.

Edelson is also representing the former commander of CFB Trenton, Col. Russell Williams, who faces two counts of first degree murder in the deaths of two young women, and two counts of break-and-enter, forcible confinement, and sexual assault against two women in the Tweed, Ont., area.

Lahey is receiving no assistance for his legal fees from his former diocese.

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