The first Stanley Cup rioter to go to trial for breaching sentence conditions had been pulled over at a Vancouver police roadside check by chance, her trial heard Friday.
Camille Cacnio, 24, who was given a suspended sentence in September for looting two pairs of pants during the 2011 Stanley Cup riot, had been ordered to abide by an overnight curfew for the first year of her sentence.
It was the lightest sentence handed out to the four dozen adult rioters sentenced so far. And Cacnio, who lived in Richmond until recently, is one of 11 rioters Vancouver police have charged with breaching sentence conditions.
Cacnio was pulled over by police on Jan. 5, a Saturday, at 10: 20 p.m., 20 minutes past the time she was supposed to be at her Yaletown-area home.
She was driving eastbound on Powell Street when Const. Barry Selver pulled her over in the 900-block, near the drive-thru Starbucks outlet, because she was driving without her headlights turned on, an indicator for impaired driving.
Cacnio told Selver she had consumed no alcohol that night, but he said he detected a faint alcohol odour on her breath and asked her to take a breathalyzer test. She blew .009, well below the legal limit of .08.
Selver asked her why she had said she hadn't had any alcohol to drink and she replied she had drunk two margaritas with dinner three hours earlier but "she said she didn't think they counted."
When Selver ran her name through the police computer, he found her riot conviction and arrested her for breaking curfew.
Cacnio's Oldsmobile was towed because her boyfriend, who was with her, didn't have a driver's licence, Selver told the B.C. Provincial Court trial in Vancouver.
While she was in the back of the police car, she was swearing out the window at her boyfriend, "blaming him for the car being towed," Selver testified.
Cacnio, who was accompanied in court by her parents, made an exaggerated puzzled look during the officer's testimony.
Selver described her outfit that night - skirt and mesh stockings - as better suited to a night on the town than one on the couch.
Court heard she was only to be exempted from her curfew for a medical emergency or with written permission from her probation officer.
Prosecutor Daniel Porte asked if Cacnio showed any signs of medical distress that night.
"Not at all," said Selver.
He said she told him she couldn't have got a letter from her probation officer because he was out of town.
Cacnio was kept overnight in custody, where she was examined by nurse Jendra Gonzales.
Cacnio was tearful and her blood pressure tested high but she told the nurse she wasn't thinking of harming herself and therefore wasn't put on suicide watch, Gonzales testified.
Cacnio, who had been on antidepressants, told the nurse she hadn't taken any for a month.
Her lawyer, Jason Tarnow, said he would show evidence Cacnio had "lawful excuse" to be out past her curfew when the trial resumes for a second day in June.
Tarnow said Friday she was on her way to Burnaby to get her medication.
Before the trial started, Tarnow made an application to have the public, including media, banned from the courtroom because he argued it was up to Judge Maria Giardini to uphold society's " higher public morals" by preventing details of Cacnio's " delicate" medical condition from being made public.
Cacnio has been targeted by the media and online posters, who have hounded, harassed and bullied her, he said, since she was shown on video smiling as she stole the pants from Black and Lee's on June 15, 2011, the night rioters caused $4 million in damages.
"It's all because of 20 seconds of foolishness," he said. "She's become the face of the riot ....
"Her medical condition is nobody's business but her own," he told the court.
The prosecution made no submissions on the application.
Giardini dismissed the bid, ruling that banning the public from open court requires extraordinary circumstances. She also dismissed a secondary bid to order a publication ban for Cacnio's medical history details.
She noted "extremely" private details of accused persons and victims are disclosed in court every day.
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