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Tessier acquitted in murder trial (Updated)

Jason Tessier is now a free man. The 30-year-old Sudbury resident was acquitted Tuesday evening of second-degree murder, following a three-week jury trial. The jury took nine hours to deliver its verdict. Tessier had pleaded not guilty to the charge.
Jason Tessier is now a free man.
The 30-year-old Sudbury resident was acquitted Tuesday evening of second-degree murder, following a three-week jury trial.

The jury took nine hours to deliver its verdict.

Tessier had pleaded not guilty to the charge.
He and two friends from Sudbury, Devland McCosham and Warren England, had been arrested last summer after the badly beaten body of North Bay resident Alex Levesque was found in the kitchen of a Sturgeon Falls apartment.

Not enough evidence
Tessier had originally been charged with first-degree murder.

But the judge at the preliminary hearing in February determind there was not enough evidence for the charge to go to trial.

The judge did say, though, there was enough evidence to proceed on a second-degree murder charge.

McCosham had pleaded guilty to manslaughter but a court-ordered ban had prevented that fact from being published until after Tessier's trial.

Tessier showed little emotion when the foreman delivered the verdict, smiling slightly only after the jury had been excused by Justice George Valin.

Jury has spoken
Tessier declined comment when asked by baytoday.ca how he felt about the verdit.

But his lawyer Andrew Buttazzoni, of Sudbury, said Tessier truly regreted and felt very badly about Levesque's "untimely" death.

"At the same time he is enormously relieved his 16-month ordeal is over. He wants to get back to normal life, and he's overwhelmed with the sense of being free after having had 15 months of downtime."

Crown attorney Paul Larsh said only, "the jury has spoken," adding that he wasn't going to be appealing the decision.

Det. Inspect. Scott Tod, of the Ontario Provincial Police Crime Investigation Branch, also accepted the verdict.

"Our investigation was a cooperative effort among three police departments, we completed our investigation, delivered it to the courts and a jury delivered its verdict today," said Tod, who was case manager of the investigation.

Levesque's family members declined comment.

Three main points
The trial began Oct. 6 and went into its final phase Tuesday morning when Justice Valin spent just over two hours giving the jury his instructions.

Justice Valin told the jury they had several verdicts they could come up with: guilty to either second-degree murder or manslaughter, or acquittal on all charges.

The jury was told there were three main points that had to be satisfied in order for them to find Tessier guilty of second-degree murder: “that the accused caused the death of Alex Levesque; that the accused caused it unlawfully; and that the accused had the state of mind required for murder.

Justice Valin then summarized the cases put forward by Crown attorney Paul Larsh and defence attorney Andrew Buttazzoni.
He sent the jury into its deliberations around 11:45 a.m.


They came back in twice to hear Justice Valin's answers to questions they had had about what constituted manslaughter,
and the main points constituting second-degree murder.

The verdict was delivered around 8:45 p.m.