‘This screams sex trade work’: Crown argues witness statements support Sagmoen search warrant

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McCallum told the court a driver’s licence and firearms licence belonging to Sagmoen were confirmed by investigators to have the address of his family’s farm listed. Additionally, two trailer licence plates registered under Sagmoen’s name matched the address. McCallum also cited a truck Sagmoen rented in 2014 where he provided the same address.

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“All the signs are that this is a person who is a resident of and strongly associated to this property,” McCallum said.

Witness accounts of women coming and going from the farm were also reasonable grounds to consider Sagmoen a suspect, McCallum argued.

The first incident, according to the witness, occurred when he saw a woman stopped on the side of the Sagmoen family’s driveway looking for a male but didn’t have a name.

Another incident in June 2017 the witness said they saw a vehicle with four people pull up to the driveway and begin blowing the horn. A man got out of the vehicle and told the witness he was looking for the Sagmoen home. The witness said a girl in the passenger seat asked him if he was the person texting her. After the vehicle left the area, the witness said a vehicle pulled up to him. A man exited and told the driver, he “knew what he was up to” and asked for money for their time as they travelled from another town, the witness said.

“This screams sex trade work,” McCallum said.

Four days after the incident the witness told police a women pulled up to the property and asked to use the witness’s phone to contact the person texting her. The witness said the woman told him she didn’t have money for gas and he provided her with $40.

“Just back to common sense here. How many scenarios apply to a situation of a woman going to a rural location to meet a person she doesn’t know without sufficient money? First of all, needing money for gas at the very least and somehow try and get ahold of an unknown person for a rendezvous,” McCallum said.

In a third incident, the witness said he woke up to a male and female outside around 11:30 p.m. When he approached the woman, the witness said she started swearing at him, asking for money and at one point threatened him with a knife.

“Is it a reasonable inference that this relates to prostitution? …I’m struggling to come up with any other reason,” McCallum said.

In summarizing her argument, the Crown argued a previous incident in January 2013 involving the alleged assault of a sex trade worker in Maple Ridge is reasonable grounds to consider Sagmoen a suspect. He pleaded guilty to an assault charge for that case in a Port Coquitlam courtroom in February 2019.

Helps said it’s not clear whether the word prostitute came from the witness involved or the witness who heard about it.

“There’s no cross reference to any of the actual other statements,” Helps argued.

“My friend is looking to embargo what’s in the affidavit to say ‘Well it’s obvious that it’s about prostitutes so therefore that information didn’t need to be delineated.”

Justice Alison Beames is expected to rule on the admissibility of the information to obtain a search warrant on Monday. Witness testimony is scheduled to begin on Tuesday.