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Wing Lee goes to court
by Derek Neary
NNSL (Feb 13/98) - Yellowknife poker baron Wing Toon Lee was scheduled to be in territorial court this morning on four tax-related charges. He has pleaded not guilty.
He is also scheduled to appear in NWT Supreme Court Tuesday morning
on one gambling charge and two charges relating to firearms. He is expected
to plead not guilty to those counts as well.
Lee, represented by lawyer James Brydon, will be tried by
judge alone.
A retired cook, Lee, 61, faces close to 30 offences in
total. A dozen relate to pornography and prostitution and two more deal
with sexual assaults. They have been scheduled for Supreme Court in June
and will likely take several weeks to resolve.
The caseload is a complicated one. Earlier this week, Crown
prosecutor Mark Scrivens said he is still reviewing the transcripts of
Lee's preliminary hearings and has yet to prepare the indictments on some
of the charges.
The charges were laid after an RCMP raid of rooms rented by
Lee for the Five Aces Poker Club at the Gold Range Hotel last summer. Lee
was allegedly in possession of gambling paraphernalia, 14 guns, thousands
of rounds of ammunition, more than a 1,000 videotapes and hundreds of
pictures of nude women.
He has been in custody since last June. |