A former teacher and volunteer hockey and baseball coach in the Halifax area was arraigned Friday on an additional 64 historical sex-related charges involving boys.
Michael Patrick McNutt, 66, of Halifax appeared in Dartmouth provincial court with lawyers Karen Endres and Tony Amoud.
McNutt, who was first charged in January, now faces a total of 91 charges involving 33 alleged victims.
The charges include 35 counts of committing an act of gross indecency, 26 of indecent assault, 16 of sexual assault, five of buggery, five of sexual exploitation, two of sexual touching, and two of invitation to sexual touching.
The offences were allegedly committed between 1971 and 1989, mainly in Halifax and Dartmouth but also in Grand Lake, Stellarton, Liverpool, Truro and New Glasgow.
On Friday, Endres asked for an adjournment of just over two months, saying none of the evidence for the 64 new charges against McNutt has been disclosed to the defence yet.
Amoud told the court the defence has a voluminous amount of evidence to review. He said he has already looked through 6,900 pages of material relating to the first set of charges and also has to watch several video statements.
Crown attorney Mark Heerema expressed concern about a delay, saying the original charges were laid seven months ago.
Judge Alanna Murphy scheduled all the charges to return to court Oct. 28.
Outside court, Heerema said it’s a complex case involving a massive investigation.
“Nevertheless, the Supreme Court of Canada directs that prosecutions proceed as soon as possible,” the Crown attorney told reporters.
“So, certainly the parties this morning in the court discussed that this case is proceeding slower than usual, although it was openly acknowledged and conceded that, given the complexity of the case, that may have to be the way it proceeds.
“It’s not typical that we have a matter with this amount of complainants. Certainly, in my experience, it’s a remarkable file in terms of the amount of complainants, the amount of charges, the volume of disclosure in relation to sexual assault allegations.”
McNutt has two convictions for sex-related offences involving boys on his record, from 2013 and 2015. He was also convicted of a sex offence in 1994, but received a pardon for that matter.
Police opened an investigation in October 2016 after several men came forward to say they had been sexually abused by teachers and coaches in the Halifax area in the 1970s and ‘80s. The investigation was called Project Apollo and resulted in McNutt’s arrest on Jan. 23 of this year.
Another man who was a former teacher and minor hockey coach was charged in April in the same investigation. Jaddus Joseph Poirier, 77, of Halifax recently elected to be tried by a Nova Scotia Supreme Court judge alone on nine charges: three counts of sexual assault, two counts each of gross indecency and sexual exploitation, and single counts of sexual touching and invitation to sexual touching.
Poirier will have a preliminary inquiry in Dartmouth provincial court in March.
McNutt and Poirier are both free on bail. Poirier is accused of breaching his release conditions in June by having contact with one of his three complainants.
