Hockey Canada sexual assault case: Carter Hart and four other former NHLers’ trial starts Tuesday

Five members of the 2018 Canadian World Junior hockey team, including former Flyers goalie Carter Hart, are set to stand trial beginning on Tuesday in London, Ontario.

Hart, Michael McLeod, Dillon Dubé, Alex Formenton, and Cal Foote were charged with sexual assault in February 2024 and have all pleaded not guilty. McLeod was also charged with an additional count of sexual assault for aiding someone else in committing the offense, prosecutors say.

Hart and his teammates from the 2018 Canadian World Junior team are facing charges stemming from an alleged sexual assault at a London hotel in June 2018.

Police say the incident began when the players met a woman at Jack’s, a bar in downtown London, after a Hockey Canada event celebrating the gold medal the team had won in January.

» READ MORE: What we know about the Hockey Canada sexual assault investigation

According to court documents, the woman accompanied one of the men to a room at the Delta Hotels by Marriott London Armouries in the early hours of June 19, where she said she had consensual sex with a player who later invited seven others into the room, and she was sexually assaulted.

The woman said she was assaulted over several hours while she was intoxicated, and some of what happened was recorded on video. The videos and text messages between the woman and players were provided to London Police in 2018.

According to a July 2022 article published by The Globe and Mail, the woman also alleged in the statement of claim that she was told to say she was sober while being recorded on video. She also stated that she tried to leave but was “directed, manipulated, and intimidated into remaining, after which she was subjected to further sexual assaults.”

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Both the London police department and Hockey Canada opened investigations into the alleged sexual assault in June 2018. London police closed their initial criminal investigation in February 2019, and Hockey Canada ended its inquiry the following year.

In April 2022, the woman filed a lawsuit against Hockey Canada, the organization that oversees Canadian junior hockey, and eight players from Canada’s 2018 World Junior team, seeking $3.55 million in damages. One month later,Hockey Canada settled the lawsuit for an unspecified sum.

Police later reopened the investigation and charged five players with sexual assault.

“This review involved reexamining initial investigative steps, gathering additional evidence, and obtaining new information. As a result, we have found sufficient grounds to charge five adult males with sexual assault,” London police chief Thai Truong said on Feb. 5, 2024. Truong was not named the city’s police chief until 2023.

“Our team explored investigative opportunities in addition to the 2018 investigation. Those leads were followed, additional witnesses were spoken to, and we collected more evidence,” said Det. Sgt. Katherine Dann, appointed in 2022 to lead the reopened investigation.

Hart has denied any wrongdoing. His lawyer, Megan Savard of the Toronto-based law firm Savard Foy LLP, posted the following on social media in January 2024:

“He is innocent and will provide a full response to this false allegation in the proper forum, a court of law. Until then, we will have no comment.”

It is unclearwhether Hart or any of the other four defendants will testify. TSN reported Tuesday that at least four members of the 2018 team are expected to be called to testify. They would be allowed to do so virtually via Zoom.

The trial is being overseen by Judge Maria V. Carroccia, who became a judge in 2020. The jury selection process begins Tuesday, while the trial has been blocked off for two months.

In the U.S., the criminal code is often state-by-state, but in Canada, it is federal. And according to a recent story by TSN, lawyers cannot object to a juror without giving a reason. They cannot make broad-stroke peremptory challenges on prospective jurors, like they could in the U.S.

Like the U.S., the burden of proof falls on the prosecution, and the defendants are considered innocent until proven guilty. Meaghan Cunningham is the lead prosecutor, or what they call in Canada, the Crown attorney. She will present the Crown, or the government’s case.

If convicted, Hart and his codefendants face a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, but they could see leniency as first-time offenders.

In July 2024, two former Quebec Major Junior Hockey League players, Nicolas Daigle and Massimo Siciliano, were sentenced to 32 months and 30 months, respectively, after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl after celebrating Victoriaville’s championship in the President’s Cup.

Hart could return to the NHL if he is found not guilty. The goalie and his codefendants took a leave of absence in January 2024, before their arrests. On July 1, they all became unrestricted free agents, except for Formenton, who had been playing in Europe after rumors swirled of his involvement in 2022.

Speaking to the media at his annual news conference during last season’s All-Star weekend, commissioner Gary Bettman called the allegations “reprehensible, horrific, and unacceptable.” Bettman said the NHL conducted its own investigation for about 12 months and interviewed every player from the 2018 team. He would not reveal the findings.

“There is a serious judicial process that looks like it’s unfolding,” he said last February, three days before the police department’s news conference. “And we didn’t, while we’re doing our investigation, want to interfere with what the London Police Service was doing. And we’re not going to do anything to interfere or influence the judicial proceedings. We’re all going to have to see how that plays out, and as I said in my remarks, we will then be in a position to respond appropriately, which we will do.”

All players from the 2018 World Junior team are suspended from participating in Hockey Canada events.

None of the players, including the five who have been charged, has been suspended for what authorities say occurred in June 2018.

While Bettman said at last year’s All-Star news conference that the league has a domestic violence/sexual assault policy in place, sexual assault is not addressed specifically anywhere in the league’s collective bargaining agreement.

A section of the league’s collective bargaining agreement — Section 18-A — does allow Bettman the power to discipline any player who is “guilty of conduct that is detrimental to or against the welfare of the League or the game of hockey.”