The long and bizarre case of David Kuntz-Angel may finally come to an end next week, or it may start over again.
• BACKGROUND: Chilliwack man who once impersonated David Lee Roth facing child sex charges
Kuntz-Angel is the Chilliwack man long known for pretending to be American rock singer David Lee Roth all the way from the Fraser Valley to Ontario.
He is also the man convicted after 20-day trial last summer of the ongoing sexual interference of a girl from the age of eight to 19 when she complained to police.
But at the sentencing hearing in November, the mental faculties of the BC Supreme Court judge who convicted him came into question, and the case was transferred to a new judge.
Kuntz-Angel’s lawyer Chantal Paquette applied for and received a mistrial declaration in court in New Westminster on Jan. 22, 2020.
• READ MORE: Mistrial declared in Chilliwack’s David Lee Roth impersonator underage sex case
So what now?
His case was to be back in BC Supreme Court on Friday, but is now set for Jan. 31 at 2 p.m. to schedule new trial dates. That may not, however, happen.
After a mistrial the Crown has to determine whether to run the entire trial again. There may be reasons, however, to issue a stay of proceedings, i.e. drop the charges.
In a case like Kuntz-Angel’s, the fragile state of the victim who is the main witness will have to be considered, as will the amount of time he has already spent in pre-trial custody, which at this point is more than 1,000 days giving him the usual 1.5-to-1 credit for time served.
The Crown will also have to once again measure the evidence against the standard two-part test, according to the Public Prosecution Service’s Crown Counsel Police Manual.
That is:
1. whether there is a substantial likelihood of conviction; and, if so,
2. whether the public interest requires a prosecution.
See www.theprogress.com later today for updates.
Do you have something to add to this story, or something else we should report on? Email: paul.henderson@theprogress.com
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