Ontario woman pleads guilty to impaired driving causing death of Sylvain Bégin
Ontario woman pleads guilty to impaired driving causing death of Sylvain Bégin
On Tuesday (September 17), Emily-Ann Rumleskie pleaded guilty to cannabis-impaired driving resulting in the death of Sylvain Bégin in September 2020.
The case had initially been scheduled for a judge and jury trial in November of this year.
The collision that claimed Bégin’s life took place on the evening of September 19, 2020, at the intersection of rue Poirier and Hwy. 148 in Mansfield-et-Pontefract. According to her plea statement, Rumleskie pulled onto the highway without yielding to Bégin’s right of way and his motorcycle collided with her vehicle. Rumleskie, a resident of Barry’s Bay Ontario, was 22 years-old at the time of her arrest on December 16, 2020. Bégin was well-known in the area as a community volunteer, firefighter, and director general of the Municipalities of Rapides-des-Joachims and l’Île-du-Grand-Calumet.
The joint submission by defense attorney Alexandre Biron and Crown Prosecutor Simon Pelletier sought a sentence of 38 months detention less her time already served, which works out to an additional 308 days (pre-trial detention is multiplied by 1.5, since there is no possibility for parole). She will also have a driving prohibition of five years.
The full plea statement can be found here.
Pelletier explained that this length of sentence is common for this type of offence.
He said initially, she had also been facing a charge of dangerous driving causing death, which was withdrawn during the plea negotiations.
The following day (September 18) in Gatineau Rumleskie also pleaded guilty to several breaches of her bail conditions as well as using a false identity, resulting in an additional two month sentence.
Pelletier pointed out that the length of the proceedings was unusual, and stemmed largely from the changing of Rumleskie’s defense attorneys midway through, as well as her arrests for breach of conditions.
Defense attorney Biron did not immediately respond to CHIP 101.9’s request for comment.
