James Stribopoulos

The appellant was convicted of multiple firearms offences after police found guns in a duffle bag at his mother's house.

On appeal, he argued the trial judge erred by admitting a recanting witness's videotaped statement under the principled exception to the hearsay rule, by improperly using his pre-trial silence to reject his testimony, and by entering multiple convictions for the same delict.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal against the convictions, finding the hearsay statement met threshold reliability and the trial judge did not rely on pre-trial silence.

However, the court applied the Kienapple principle to enter conditional stays on several duplicate counts.

The appellant, a Canadian citizen, resisted extradition to the United States on charges of fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud.

The extradition judge had granted a stay of proceedings based on statements made by an American judge and prosecutor, which the Court of Appeal subsequently set aside.

Relying on the reasons given in the companion case of United States of America v. Cobb, the Supreme Court of Canada allowed the appeal and reinstated the order staying the extradition proceedings.