A former St. Albert resident who hit a police officer with his car was sentenced to four months of house arrest on Friday.
Morey Rudolph, 62, was sentenced after pleading guilty to dangerous driving in relation to hitting Edmonton Police Service Const. Eric Wilde on Oct. 15, 2008. According to an agreed statement of facts read into the court, Wilde saw Rudolph and a woman in the front seats of Rudolph’s Chrysler Sebring engaging in a sex act.
Wilde told them to stop and get out of the car when the woman, referred to in court as a prostitute, told Rudolph that Wilde was a police officer. Rudolph turned on the car, backed up then went forward and hit the officer as he tried to escape. Wilde ended up on the engine roof, hung on and pulled his service weapon while asking the defendant to stop.
After Rudolph stopped the car, Wilde went to the driver’s side to arrest him. However, Rudolph tried to fight off the officer by punching him in the chest and not co-operating when being handcuffed.
During sentencing, defence lawyer Shawn Beaver said his client has shown a great deal of remorse and is trying to make the incident up to his wife of 45 years and their three children. As well, Beaver said Rudolph has volunteered in the community with several charities.
“He seems to be falling over himself to apologize to his wife and kids,” Beaver told Justice Sterling Sanderman while in Court of Queen’s Bench in Edmonton. “He’s absolutely mortified with what he did to his wife.”
However, Crown prosecutor Dennis Chronopoulos told the justice that, should Rudolph get only a fine and probation, it would send a message to the community that hitting a police officer with a car would not result in severe punishment.
“He’s upset because he got caught,” added Chronopoulos. “If anything, he’s upset by the whole situation that led to him getting caught.”
When reading his decision, Sanderman gave Rudolph credit for pleading guilty as well as making efforts to improve his own life. But Sanderman felt that Rudolph wasn’t acknowledging Const. Wilde in the process, despite a conversation the defendant had with the officer prior to court.
“There was very little concern about Const. Wilde,” he said. “[He] belongs to a class of people that is called to put his life on the line … they have the right to expect compliance.”
Admitting that he didn’t want to incarcerate Rudolph, Sanderman instead opted to give him a four-month conditional sentence, 20 hours of community service and restricted him from driving until March 5, 2011, the same punishment the province gave him when they suspended his licence earlier this year.
For the first two months, Rudolph will serve house arrest and will be allowed out of his home only for business, legal and medical appointments, religious observance and four hours on Sunday to do anything he needs for the week. If he follows the conditions, then he can serve his remaining two months with only a curfew of 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.
Rudolph will also have to pay a $250 victim surcharge.
“I believe you when you say I will never see you in my court again,” Sanderman told Rudolph. “But if you don’t follow these conditions, I tend to throw people in jail.”
