Court scrambles to find dates for businessman's sexual assault retrial
The Nova Scotia Supreme Court is now scrambling to find new trial dates for Michael Raymond Kobylanski after a jury failed to reach verdicts on four charges following the Dartmouth businessman's sexual assault trial.
Last week, a jury convicted the 41-year-old of assault, found him not guilty of choking, but said it couldn't come to decisions on charges of sexual assault, uttering threats, confinement and committing a sexual assault with a weapon.
The charges relate to incidents in 2014 and 2015 when Kobylanski is accused of threatening and assaulting a 17-year-old girl who worked for him.
Kobylanski will go on trial again for the four outstanding charges and he was in court Thursday morning to set new dates.
Crown and defence requested 13 days for the new trial because the jury deliberated for three days in his last trial.
For now, Kobylanski's new trial is tentatively scheduled to begin in April of next year. But those dates fall outside the new 30-month time limits imposed on trials by the Supreme Court of Canada.
In court Thursday morning, Crown prosecutor Susan MacKay said Kobylanski will reach that 30-month deadline next January.
Court officials will spend the next two weeks trying to find 13 days this fall to hold his trial.
He is scheduled to be sentenced on the assault charge next month.
