Tara Kearsey
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (July 03/02) - A man who served six months inside the Yellowknife Correctional Centre awaiting trial for sexual assault is now a free man.

Elvis Jeremick'ca was acquitted of sexual assault June 26 evening. It took a jury of eight women and four men only two hours to return the not guilty verdict.

The 31-year-old native of Wha Ti was accused of sexually assaulting a woman on Tin Can Hill last summer. He was arrested last October and released pending certain conditions.

But Jeremick'ca breached the terms of his release in January and was detained in custody on the sexual assault charge since then.

After spending six months in prison, essentially for a crime he did not commit, Jeremick'ca was released at 5:45 p.m. last Wednesday when the jury returned its verdict.

"Unfortunately Mr. Jeremick'ca did spend some time in remand before he was acquitted, but unfortunately there's no redress there and there's no way to get any compensation for that," said Jeremick'ca's lawyer, Scott Duke.

Duke argued during the trial that the complainant did have sex with his client on Tin Can Hill on the night in question, but it was consensual. Both parties were consuming alcohol that evening.

The basis of his argument was that the complainant fabricated her story about the events as they occurred that evening because she was concerned about her common-law's reaction to the affair. Her common-law was a friend of Jeremick'ca before the incident occurred.

"These are difficult cases to prove," said Crown prosecutor Ari Slatkoff after the trial ended. "It doesn't take much to raise reasonable doubt." He said he is satisfied it was a fair trial.