Man who stuffed body in duffel bag gets 5 1/2 years in prison
Trevor Pritchard, Steve Fischer | CBC News | Posted: March 24, 2016 4:45 PM | Last Updated: March 25, 2016
Family of overdose victim condemns David Lojk's treatment of 27-year-old's body
An Ottawa man who admitted to stuffing Deepak Beaudoin-Reichmann into a duffel bag after the 27-year-old died of a drug overdose last fall has been sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison.
David Lojk, also 27, was in a Brockville court Thursday for his sentencing hearing after pleading guilty last month to causing indignity to a human body, drug trafficking and breach of conditions.
Beaudoin-Reichmann was found dead on October 14, 2015, about a week after being reported missing by his family in the Niagara Region.
- David Lojk charged in suspicious death of Deepak Beaudoin-Reichmann
- Deepak Beaudoin-Reichmann ID'd after body found in Kemptville Creek
In victim impact statements delivered Thursday, Beaudoin-Reichmann's family condemned Lojk for the way he treated Beaudoin-Reichmann's body after he overdosed from a combination of cocaine and oxycodone.
"You treated the lifeless body of a human being as if it was trash," Beaudoin-Reichmann's father Joseph Beaudoin told court Thursday.
"You violated my son's humanity by trying to deny him a burial."
Beaudoin-Reichmann had spent months in drug rehabilitation facility in Grimsby, Ont., but came to Ottawa to visit friends after receiving an inheritance, court heard in February 2016, when Lojk pleaded guilty.
According to an agreed statement of facts from February, Beaudoin-Reichmann overdosed on cocaine and oxycodone while partying with Lojk in an Ottawa apartment.
Lojk, with the help of two friends, then drove the body to Kemptville Creek and dumped it there, according to the statement of facts. Surveillance video played in court in February showed three men moving Beaudoin-Reichmann's body in a duffel bag.
'Stupid and morally reprehensible'
"You put more effort into hiding my brother's body than to helping him when he was alive," Beaudoin-Reichmann's sister Vanessa Beaudoin said during her victim's impact statement Thursday.
Lojk was also initially charged with conspiracy to commit an indictable offence but the charge was stayed when he entered his plea.
Doug Baum, Lojk's lawyer, told court Thursday he was seeking a four-to-five-year sentence for his client, calling his actions "stupid and morally reprehensible" but noting that Lojk was not directly responsible for Beaudoin-Reichmann's death.
Crown Attorney Curt Flanagan accused Lojk of doing nothing for almost an entire day as Beaudoin-Reichmann "was dying beside him, literally."
Flanagan said Thursday he would be seeking a sentence of six-to-eight years on the charges.
Two other men charged
Two other men, who cannot be named due to a publication ban, have also been charged with causing indignity to a human body and conspiracy to commit an indictable offence in the same case.
Prior to the arrests, Ontario Provincial Police had asked for the public's help to find three men spotted travelling in a half-ton pickup truck near where the body was found, around County Road 20 and County Road 18 in North Grenville.
In late October, police searched an apartment on Lisgar Street in Ottawa and seized a white pick-up truck parked outside.