{"id":167113,"date":"2025-08-22T02:56:38","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T02:56:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/167113\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T02:56:38","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T02:56:38","slug":"canadian-government-will-not-appeal-sexual-assault-acquittal-of-5-hockey-players-lawyer-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/167113\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadian government will not appeal sexual assault acquittal of 5 hockey players, lawyer says"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONDON, Ontario — A lawyer for one of five former world junior hockey players acquitted of sexual assault charges<\/a> last month says the Canadian government will not appeal the judge\u2019s ruling.<\/p>\n

Daniel Brown, who represents Alex Formenton, said in an email Thursday he had been informed of that decision.<\/p>\n

Formenton, Michael McLeod, Carter Hart, Dillon Dube and Callan Foote were all acquitted of sexual assault. McLeod was also acquitted of a separate charge of being a party to the offense of sexual assault.<\/p>\n

The defense deemed the ruling a \u201cresounding vindication,\u201d while the complainant\u2019s lawyer called it devastating.<\/p>\n

Ontario Superior Court Justice Maria Carroccia found the complainant\u2019s testimony was not credible or reliable and that there were \u201ctroubling aspects\u201d in how she delivered some of her evidence about the 2018 encounter. The judge said the complainant tended to blame others for inconsistencies in her narrative and exaggerated her level of intoxication that night.<\/p>\n

The NHL said at the time of the ruling the players \u2014 none of whom is currently on an NHL roster or has an active contract \u2014 remained ineligible to play in the league while it reviews the judge\u2019s findings, adding in a statement that the allegations in the case were disturbing, even if not determined to be criminal.<\/p>\n

The Players’ Association said the five should have the opportunity to return to the ice, adding that the league\u2019s eligibility ruling was \u201cinconsistent\u201d with discipline procedures in the collective bargaining agreement.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NHL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/NHL<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON, Ontario — A lawyer for one of five former world junior hockey players acquitted of sexual assault…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167114,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[29011,301,1155,286,5,2493,1156,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-167113","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-29011","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-crime","11":"tag-general-news","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-indictments","14":"tag-sexual-assault","15":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115070172849653602","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}