Ontario Superior Court Justice Maria Carroccia ruled Thursday morning that Hockey Canada players Michael McLeod, Dillon Dube, Carter Hart, Cal Foote and Alex Formenton were not guilty of sexual assault in 2018. McLeod has also been found not guilty of being a party to the offence.
In her reason for judgement reading, the Judge determined that the testimony of the alleged victim, who went by E.M., had “inconsistencies”, and therefore could not be considered credible or reliable. She also said that some of E.M.’s testimony was proven wrong by video evidence, and that the plaintiff “exaggerated her intoxication”.
The judge also rejected the crown’s claim that the players coordinated a false version of the events, and that evidence from a group chat at the time of the incident was just the players “expressing their honest recollections of what happened”.
“Having found that i cannot rely upon the evidence of E.M. and then considering the evidence in this trial as a whole, i conclude that the crown cannot meet its onus (of proof) on any of the counts before me”.
- Maria Carroccia, Ontario Superior Court Justice
As of now, all five players are currently barred from playing in the National Hockey League (NHL), a decision that was made by the league when charges were initially laid back in 2024. Now that the court proceedings are over, the NHL will review the decision, going through their own process, and then will determine if these players can re-enter the league. If that were to happen, all five players would be unrestricted free agents, meaning they could sign with any team that presents an offer to them.
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