HALIFAX - After about ten hours of deliberations, the jury in Lyle Howe's sexual assault trial case found him guilty of sexual assault, but not guilty of administering a stupefying substance.
The Halifax defence lawyer was accused of drugging and sexually assaulting a 19-year-old woman in March 2011.
“Well, it’s basically destroyed," said Howe's lawyer, Mike Taylor, when asked about his client's career as a lawyer.
"There’s no other better way to put it than that.”
“That makes it clear that they [the jury] zeroed in on the issue of consent…They asked one question and it was clarification on the definition of consent in the context of sexual assault,” said Crown attorney Darcy MacPherson.
During the trial, the jury heard that Howe met with the woman at a bar and then at his law offices, and eventually ended up at her apartment.
The woman testified that she doesn’t remember much from the night of the alleged assault. She told the court she awoke the next morning feeling sore, and suspected that she had been drugged and sexually assaulted.
Howe admitted to engaging in sexual activity with the complainant, but said she was a willing participant and told the court she wasn’t impaired.
Many people in the courtroom expressed shock when the verdict was delivered. Howe was later heard screaming “what am I going to do now?”
MacPherson says the crown is looking for a “substantial custodial period”.
Taylor said there is a good chance Howe will appeal the verdict.
Howe will be sentenced on July 30.
