Tim Lafreniere, the Grand Forks man charged with aggravated assault in a May 2012 incident, has been found guilty.
Lafreniere was accused of striking another Grand Forks resident with a glass liquor bottle in a fight in the Moto area east of Grand Forks and the victim had to be placed in a medically-induced coma.
“He was convicted there, I believe it was (June 21) and they’ve postponed the hearing for sentencing,” explained Grand Forks RCMP’s Staff Sgt. Jim Harrison, adding he didn’t know when the sentencing hearing was.
In other court-related news, a prolific offender has received jail time for a series of thefts.
Harrison said Jarrod Kinakin was arrested June 29.
“We had a warrant for his arrest for being unlawfully at large, plus we had a couple of other charges of break-and-enter and that type of thing against him. He went to court and received a nine-month sentence,” he said. “One of the charges was based on a DNA hit that we got. Basically we had sent exhibits into the lab to be analyzed for DNA and it came back positive and as a result of that, he was charged with break-and-enter.”
The positive DNA match came from a series of vehicle thefts in the Valmar area last year but Harrison said analysis doesn’t happen overnight.
“It takes a while for the lab to process and identify the DNA and it came back last month as a positive hit so we proceeded with a charge from there,” said Harrison.