If he was still alive, Jason Sylvestre would have been found guilty of manslaughter in the shooting death of Scotty Pate.
But Sylvestre was not in the courtroom Monday when, on the fourth anniversary of Pate’s death, Superior Court Justice Patricia Moore delivered her decision after a lengthy judge-alone trial that began almost a year ago.
On Sept. 8, Sylvestre, 39, died suddenly near Windsor. Sources said he was killed in a motorcycle crash. Instead of registering a conviction for manslaughter during a botched drug robbery, Moore said his charge would be “abated,” or nullified.
Also, Denny Doucet, 41, and Nicole Moyer, 36, two people the Crown said were part of a failed scheme to rob Pate, 27, both were acquitted of manslaughter and, along with Sylvestre, acquitted of conspiracy to commit robbery.
The decision set off an emotional and profane reaction from a large group of Pate’s family and friends who noisily stormed out of the courtroom. Some cried, some yelled.
“Payback is a (expletives),” one woman said.
“That’s enough,” said one of several police officers in the courtroom.
Once they left, defence lawyers Keli Mersereau and Anik Morrow asked Moore to ensure their clients had a police escort when they left the courthouse.
Moore’s decision to acquit Doucet and Moyer hinged largely on Moore’s finding that the evidence of witness Chris McNeil, a childhood friend of Sylvestre’s, was not reliable. McNeil died before the trial began but his police statements and Ontario Court preliminary hearing evidence formed a large part of the Crown’s case.
Moore found McNeil was an “unsavoury,” unreliable witness with a long criminal record of 36 convictions, many of them crimes of dishonesty. He was also a heavy fentanyl user at the time of the shooting. There were considerable inconsistencies between his police statements and his preliminary hearing evidence.
“I agree that Mr. McNeil is an unsavoury witness who has demonstrated through his record and actions that he had no difficulty lying, had done so in the past when it was to benefit himself or get himself out of trouble,” she said.
Moore said it would be “unsafe to convict on his evidence” without other evidence to back his story and “that he is not falsely implicating innocent individuals.”
Moore gave a detailed review of what was heard at the trial. Pate was shot in the head and shoved out of a grey car on Ashland Avenue, near the East West Bar and Grill, on Oct. 7, 2020, just before 9 p.m. The car quickly left the area.
Moore heard from several witnesses who heard the gunshot and a female voice call out “He’s dead.” Pate was found on his back and unresponsive. He had two cellphones and 18 fake $100 bills near his body.
Pate had been at the bar minutes earlier and ordered chicken wings that were delivered by a server to a black car where Pate was waiting in the back seat. Surveillance video showed someone running to the black car before it left the parking lot. Other video captured the grey car, but it was grainy.
A rented grey Ford Fusion was reported stolen by a woman the next day and police quickly deduced it was the car involved in the shooting. McNeil lived in the same building as the woman and often, because he was a suspended driver, used vehicles the woman rented. The vehicle was found burned out at Chippewa of the Thames First Nation four days after Pate was killed.
McNeil told police he was friends with the three accused and Pate. Sylvestre had plotted to rob Pate and had recruited Doucet and Moyer to help him. But as Moore pointed out, his evidence that the pair had consented to help was inconsistent and shaky.
McNeil also told police Sylvestre hid a gun wrapped in his black T-shirt under a dumpster behind a Dundas Street tire store. Police recovered the gun the day after the shooting. Pate’s blood was on the T-shirt. The gun was loaded with seven bullets but did not appear to have been fired.
All three accused were arrested two days after the shooting.
McNeil said at the preliminary hearing, Sylvestre, who was known to have firearms, had targeted Pate because Pate wouldn’t let him rob one of his friends. Sylvestre needed money so he decided to rob Pate instead of about $16,000 in fentanyl and crystal meth.
McNeil said he told Sylvestre he wouldn’t participate in the robbery. He and Sylvestre visited Doucet and Moyer where Sylvestre asked for their help. Several times, Doucet and Moyer, Moore noted, said no.
Moore said McNeil “flip-flopped” in his accounts. He said he heard Moyer finally agree to drive and Doucet said he was “down” to participate because he needed the money, but also said he didn’t think they would go through with the plan.
Sylvestre was going to order Pate to hand over the drugs when they met at an agreed meeting place. McNeil’s evidence was he left Sylvestre with Doucet and Moyer and the rental car keys.
Later, he said Doucet called to tell him to wait a few hours and then report the car was stolen. He said he got another call from Doucet saying if it ever came up, to say “they brought the pizza to the party” meaning he should say Pate brought the gun.
Sylvestre, McNeil said, told him Pate got into the car with another man, threw the drugs at them, Sylvestre got out and unlocked the doors and “Scotty reached for something” before a gun went off. He told McNeil he and Pate ran away.
Moore said there was no confirmatory evidence of a conspiracy. The only evidence beyond McNeil’s account that Moyer participated was witnesses heard a female voice at the shooting scene.
“She may very well have been involved, but I cannot find this fact beyond a reasonable doubt,” Moore said.
She had a similar finding for Doucet. “It would be unsafe to convict Mr. Doucet on the unconfirmed evidence of Mr. McNeil alone,” she said.
Sylvestre was in “a different position” and there was evidence beyond McNeil, pointing to his guilt, she said.
“I find the Crown has not proven their case beyond a reasonable doubt on the conspiracy to rob, and with respect to Denny Doucet and Nicole Moyer’s participation in the manslaughter and they are acquitted on all counts,” Moore said.