When disgraced Ottawa lawyer J.D. Coon fled the country as a child-sex fugitive in December 2013, he went to Cambodia to teach at a children’s school.
Coon, who specialized in child-protection law, was accused back in September 2013 of molesting a young Ottawa girl. The police theory is that the defence lawyer molested the girl, told her he loved her and to keep it a secret.
According to police, Coon, then 49, denied the accusations in a September 2013 police interview and he took a polygraph in November 2013. Ottawa police then called Coon and asked him to turn himself in on charges of sexual assault, sexual interference and invitation to sexual touching.
But instead of turning himself into police, Coon got a work permit and went to Cambodia where he got a job as a schoolteacher.
Police sent a patrol officer over to his house in January 2014 but Coon was long gone, and in fact had left the country four weeks earlier.
Ottawa police then obtained a warrant for his arrest and told the media at the time that they feared there could be more victims.
Coon was arrested when he returned to Canada on Aug. 3 on an international flight to Vancouver. Since then his child-sex crimes case has been making its way through the Ottawa Courthouse, with Coon most recently appearing on Feb. 6. No trial dates have been set.
Coon pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a girl in 1991 but was granted a conditional discharge, which means he was spared a criminal record after 15 months’ probation.
Though the Law Society knew about his child-sex crime history, Coon was granted a licence to practise law and went on to specialize in child-protection only to be accused of molesting another young girl.
Coon abruptly stopped practising law in late 2013 amid the Ottawa child-sex investigation, fled the country, lived as a fugitive for five years and is now in jail awaiting prosecution for his latest sex charges involving children.
Coon’s licence has since been revoked. OTTAWA CITIZEN
