Former cabbie Lulzim (Leon) Jakupaj’s notice of appeal form is filled out in pen, with an attached document handwritten on lined paper.
“I wish to appeal my conviction because I believe it was an unreasonable verdict,” states the document, titled “Grounds of Appeal.”
“Discussions with my trial lawyer Jason Edwards confirm that the dislike Judge Whalen showed toward me during the trial was obvious. I believe, because of this dislike for me, Judge Whalen chose to overlook issues with the Crown case, such as identity of the accused and the timeline of events.”
Jakupaj is appealing his March 2017 conviction for breaking into a woman’s Kilbride home, for which he is currently serving a four-year sentence handed to him by Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court Chief Justice Raymond Whalen. Jakupaj filed the notice of appeal, which is still before the court, last summer.
Related stories:
Cabbie preyed on vulnerable women, court hears
Sentencing set for former cabbie convicted of break-in
Jakupaj, now 34, was working as a City Wide Cabs driver when he picked up a 22-year-old woman on George Street shortly before 3 a.m. one night in May 2016. He drove her to a house and minutes after she went inside, he followed.
Jakupaj was seen by the woman’s boyfriend, who saw him peering in through a window in the bedroom’s French door. He confronted Jakupaj, who ran away.
A neighbour testified to having seen a cab driver walking toward the home after the woman went inside, then coming out in a hurry minutes later.
Jakupaj told police he had ensured the woman got safely inside the house and then drove back downtown. CCTV footage captured a taxi matching that of Jakupaj’s on George Street 15 minutes after he had left to take the woman to Kilbride.
In his notice of appeal, Jakupaj said the woman’s boyfriend changed his testimony several times and had corroborated with another witness before identifying Jakupaj as the intruder.
“The key witness even said, ‘You know, maybe it wasn’t Mr. Jakupaj, I don’t know,’” Jakupaj wrote. “Obviously the key witness has doubt in his own mind.”
Jakupaj said Whalen had refused to accept the CCTV evidence.
“It would be impossible to leave ‘cab alley’ at 2:42:11 a.m., drive to the address, accept payment, check cab for belongings, turn cab around, then stop and wait for another five minutes to pass as stated by the other witness, then exit the cab, break and enter into an unknown house, have an altercation with the key witness in the house and then return to the cab and be back at ‘cab alley’ at 2:57:32 a.m.,” he wrote.
“Because of these issues and Judge Whalen’s obvious dislike for me, I feel that my Charter of Rights … have been violated. I believe I did not have a fair trial by an impartial tribunal,” Jakupaj wrote.
He is asking the Court of Appeal to overturn his conviction and order a new trial by judge alone.
In January, Jakupaj was found guilty of sexually assaulting two other female passengers after he brought them home from the downtown St. John’s area in his cab. The assaults occurred in separate incidents, and both took place before the break-in in Kilbride.
Edwards, who declined comment on the appeal Wednesday, wasn’t Jakupaj’s lawyer at that trial, since Jakupaj fired him just before his sentencing for the break-in. Jakupaj was represented instead by Amanda Summers, who has asked the court for a jail sentence between six and 20 months for the sexual assaults, saying the details put the assaults on the low end of the seriousness scale. Summers also told the court last week that Jakupaj is seeing a psychiatrist and doing well in prison.
Prosecutor Dana Sullivan has argued for a jail sentence between 2 ½ and three years, plus lifetime sex offender status for Jakupaj, saying he violated a position of trust when he committed the assaults, since the women had trusted him, as a taxi driver, to get them safely home.
Justice Rosalie McGrath will sentence Jakupaj for the sexual assaults on April 25.
Twitter: @tara_bradbury
