This police officer would have been in a relationship with a suspect

Photo Pierre-Paul Poulin
Réal Lemay, who had fifteen years of experience before being fired, was presented at the palais de justice in Saint-Jérôme yesterday.

Claudia Berthiaume

Tuesday, 30 January 2018 01:00

UPDATE
Tuesday, 30 January 2018 01:00

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A former police officer of the North Shore of Montreal found itself at the bench of the accused for having provided privileged information to a suspect that he is amouraché after having stopped at the scene of a pot plantation.

When he was the investigator to the Régie inter-municipal de police Thérèse-De Blainville, Real Lemay has made a search warrant at the residence of Nancy Asselin, may 28, 2014.

Photo Pierre-Paul Poulin

Nancy Asselin
A witness for the Crown

Struggling with financial problems, Ms. Asselin explained to the police that she would have lent her basement to “someone who did business shady” to set up a cannabis plantation.

From what the lady told the court yesterday, the investigator Lemay would have had pity on her and wanted to help him deal with his record of production of marijuana.

It would have reminded Ms. Asselin 30 minutes after the end of his interrogation to tell him not to do so, testified that the latter, in the palais de justice in Saint-Jérôme.

A week later, Réal Lemay would have gone for a drink at the one he had just been arrested. This was the beginning of an intimate relationship between the suspect and the police officer.

“He told me that it was not necessary that he might take, he could not be with me,” said Ms. Asselin to the judge Michèle Toupin.

2000 text messages

The investigator and his new flame are then exchanged over 2,000 text messages and photos for the five months during which they are frequented. Réal Lemay would have used the cell phone provided by his employer to contact the lady, as well as her personal phone.

A few times, it would have even sent pictures of the searches on which he has worked, and revealed details of a spinning he was in a different folder.

Réal Lemay visited Nancy Asselin during his working hours, sometimes up to five times per day, “because he was someone [else] in his life,” said the lady yesterday. They took a drink, listening to music, talking about the case of Ms. Asselin and sometimes had sex.

The liaison would come to an end in October 2014, when the lady moved.

Charges dropped

Ms. Asselin has then passed all of the conversations she has had with the investigator to his lawyer — that he would have been referred by the police and the charges against her were dropped.

Real Lemay has been accused of abuse of trust and fraudulent use of a computer, in the spring of 2015. He was fired by his employer.

► TODAY : The Crown, continues his evidence with another man, once frequented by the suspect.