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	Prosecutor Wanted to Appeal Acquittals By Trevor Pritchar Standard-Freeholder January 8, 2009 http://www.standard-freeholder.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1379795 The prosecutor for a number of Project Truth trials actively encouraged one sexual abuse victim to continue pursuing his allegations against a Catholic priest after the priest was acquitted in Ontario, the Cornwall Public Inquiry heard yesterday. Assistant Crown attorney Alain Godin said that Claude Marleau was "completely crushed" after an Ontario court acquitted Rev. Paul Lapierre in September 2001. "He was in shock," said Godin, who testified mostly in French. "I didn't even know if he wanted to talk to me." Godin was an assistant Crown attorney in Fort Frances, Ont., when he was assigned in 2001 to prosecute sexual abuse charges laid under Project Truth, the Ontario Provincial Police's four-year investigation into allegations a clan of pedophiles had operated in the Cornwall area. Of the 15 men charged during Project Truth, at least four -- including Lapierre -- had allegedly abused Marleau. During Lapierre's 2001 trial, Godin had tried to establish the fact that Marleau had been groomed for sex by Lapierre and other men, including Rev. Kenneth Martin and George (Sandy) Lawrence. Godin was prevented from calling Martin and Lawrence as witnesses, however, because Lapierre's attorney was also representing them and Justice Jean-Paul Lalonde did not want a mistrial. On Sept. 12, 2001, Lalonde found Lapierre not guilty, saying that while he believed Marleau, the Crown had not proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt. "When I heard the decision, I was hard pressed to find out how he got there," Godin told a lawyer for the Ministry of the Attorney General yesterday. Godin initially tried to appeal the verdict, but was informed by his superiors there were no legal grounds for the appeal to succeed. Still, he told commission counsel Pierre Dumais he didn't want Marleau -- with whom he'd developed a personal relationship -- to give up. "I spoke to him. I encouraged him," said Godin. "We'd talked about any number of things. I'd gotten closer to him." Lapierre was eventually charged in Quebec with indecent assault. He was found guilty in 2004 and was sentenced to one year behind bars. Godin said the Quebec prosecution succeeded because Lapierre wasn't put on the stand, as he was in Ontario. "If he didn't testify, then that can't raise a reasonable doubt," said Godin. "That's the substantial difference." Godin was also the prosecutor during Martin and Lawrence's Project Truth trials. Both men were also acquitted. Godin also sought to appeal those acquittals, but was again told the appeals wouldn't be successful. While he felt there were "substantial links" between the men, Godin said there was never enough evidence to show they were part of an organized clan of pedophiles. "Conspiracy is a very difficult thing to prove anyway," he said. "You have to have certain elements of evidence. You have to have statements. Now we have wiretapping and so on . . . but in this case we had no such thing." Dumais asked Godin if, looking back, there was anything he would have done differently in the trials he oversaw. "I can tell you no, essentially no," said Godin. "I would do the same today as I did then." The inquiry resumes today at 9:30 a. m. with a new witness.
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