Ex-husband of Dennis Oland's wife won't testify at murder retrial

The Crown has decided against calling the ex-husband of Dennis Oland's wife as a new witness at his murder retrial in the 2011 bludgeoning death of his father, based on some information provided by the defence team.

The nature of that information was not revealed in the Saint John courtroom on Wednesday.

It's also unclear what evidence the Crown had hoped Ronald Ferguson, Lisa Andrik Oland's ex-husband, could provide.

Ferguson did not testify at Oland's first trial in 2015.

Crown prosecutors declined to comment on the matter after court.

The defence had objected to Ferguson being called as a witness. No reasons were given in court.

Ferguson could not immediately be reached for comment.

Legal battle over child support

He and Andrik-Oland married in 1989 and divorced in 2003, but are in the midst of a legal battle over their only child together, family court documents reveal.

Ferguson is seeking 16 months of retroactive child support from Andrik-Oland for their 25-year-old son, Andru Ferguson, according to the documents. The amount is listed as "TBD."

He filed the motion on Nov. 19, 2018 — the day before Oland's retrial was originally scheduled to begin.

The motion is an attempt to bully me and I ask that it be dismissed.- Lisa Andrik-Oland

In a response filed on Jan. 22, Andrik-Oland alleges Ferguson has "timed his motion to coincide with court proceedings that I attend to support my husband."

"The motion is an attempt to bully me and I ask that it be dismissed with costs awarded to me," she wrote.

A case conference was held on Jan. 23, but a hearing will be held before a judge of the Court of Queen's Bench, family division, to settle the dispute. A date has not yet been set.

Oland, 50, is being retried for second-degree murder in the death of his father, multimillionaire Richard Oland.

He is the last person known to have seen his father alive when he visited him at his office on the evening of July 6, 2011. The body of the 69-year-old was found in the office the next morning with 45 sharp-and blunt-force injuries to his head, neck and hands.

A jury found Oland guilty in 2015, but the New Brunswick Court of Appeal overturned his conviction and ordered a new trial, citing an error in the judge's instructions to the jury. He is being retried by judge alone.

The retrial is scheduled to resume on Thursday at 9:30 a.m. with the continued testimony of Payman Hakimian, a computer forensics expert with the RCMP's technological crimes unit in Fredericton.

Crown prosecutor Derek Weaver had advised the court at the end of proceedings Tuesday of the Crown's intention to call Ronald Ferguson.

Weaver did not initially identify Ferguson, saying only that the defence was objecting to a proposed Crown witness and that Justice Terrence Morrison would have to settle the matter.

It was only when the judge asked who the proposed witness was that Weaver revealed Ferguson's name and relationship to Andrik-Oland.

Morrison was scheduled to hear arguments from the Crown and defence Wednesday morning about whether Ferguson should be allowed to testify.

But Weaver told Morrison the Crown needed more time to look into some information the defence had provided shortly before court started and "determine whether we still want to call this witness."

Weaver said the Crown had outlined its position regarding Ferguson in correspondence with the defence on Jan. 25 and followed up Tuesday night with a point-form summary of his anticipated evidence.

The defence sent a response Wednesday morning and "given the additional points that they have added, we feel … we really have to check into this issue," Weaver said.

The Crown's next witness wasn't available until the afternoon, so Morrison adjourned the trial until 1:30 p.m. When court resumed, Weaver advised the court the Crown had decided not to call Ferguson.​

No computer activity after visit

Weaver then proceeded to question Hakimian about his involvement in the investigation.

Hakimian attended the crime scene on July 7, 2011 and seized 12 items from the office, including computers, digital cameras, an external hard drive and an iPad.

His analysis found the last human interaction with the victim's main computer was website browsing at 5:39 p.m. on July 6, 2011, around the same time the accused stopped by to visit.​

Earlier in the afternoon there had been "continuous, continuous activity" on the computer, said Hakimian. "There's hardly any gaps," at most, "maybe a few minutes."

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Two emails were subsequently received at 5:47 p.m. and 6:35 p.m., but they were not read, he said.

Hakimian also determined the victim's iPhone had been connected to the computer up until 4:44 p.m. and that a backup was completed. The iPhone has never been found.

It was the only item that went missing from the crime scene, other than possibly a note mentioned in a text message from the victim's mistress, Diana Sedlacek.

Other valuable items, such as the victim's Rolex watch, cash, electronics and the keys to his BMW, which was parked outside, were left untouched.