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Kelowna  

Sentenced for club attack

UPDATE: 4:35 p.m.

While the family of Kyle O'Brien celebrated Justice Allen Betton's sentencing Friday afternoon, Steven Kaplan's girlfriend broke down in tears.

Kaplan, who the Crown described as the “quarterback” of 2014 assault on Michael Martin, was given an eight-month jail sentence. O'Brien, the bouncer at Sapphire nightclub who threw Martin out of the bar at the request of Kaplan, was given 12 months of probation and a $3,000 fine.

“Neither Mr. Kaplan or Mr. O'Brien showed any apparent concern or surprise for Mr. Martin as he lay on the ground obviously unconscious and in distress,” said Justice Betton, who is currently on break from presiding over the high-profile Jonathan Bacon murder trial.

Despite Justice Betton finding both men criminally responsible last spring, he said Friday that Kaplan played a larger role in the assault.

“Mr. Kaplan's role in all of this is, in my view, more serious than that of Mr. O'Brien,” Justice Betton said. “He ... is the one who engaged Mr. Kollie (who threw the punch), found and facilitated the exposure of Mr. Martin to what ultimately occurred.

“This was not a spontaneous incident.”

O'Brien's extended family and friends hugged and high-fived when Justice Betton ruled O'Brien would face no jail time. Kaplan's girlfriend wept as Kaplan was taken into custody by the court's sheriffs.

Both O'Brien and Kaplan had no criminal record prior to the 2014 incident and had served no pre-sentence jail time. 


ORIGINAL: 3 p.m.

The fate of Kyle O'Brien and Steven Kaplan will be decided by a Kelowna Supreme Court judge Friday afternoon.

O'Brien, a bouncer at Sapphire nightclub on the night of Sept. 6, 2014, was convicted of assault in March 2017, for dragging Michael Martin out of the club at the request of Kaplan.

A few moments later, Martin lay knocked out on the pavement in front of the club, his skull fractured.

Kaplan and Martin had been in two separate altercations that evening, but Kaplan apparently wasn't finished.

Once Martin had been ejected from the club by O'Brien, Kaplan enlisted the help of Steven Kollie, a much larger man than both Kaplan and the 130-pound Martin.

Surveillance footage from outside the bar shows Kollie walked up behind Martin and sucker-punched him in the head, directly in front of O'Brien.

The single punch drops Martin, and Kollie walks away. Neither O'Brien, nor the club's other bouncer, pursues Kollie.

Kollie, with 31 prior convictions, was convicted of aggravated assault in the spring of 2016 and sentenced to five years in jail.

In March 2017, O'Brien was found guilty of assault, while Kaplan was convicted of aggravated assault, for their part in organizing and facilitating the vicious attack.

In his sentencing submissions Friday, Crown prosecutor David Grabavac told the court after spending 17 days in the hospital, Martin continues to suffer from traumatic brain injury. In a 2016 report, a doctor who assessed Martin said the brain damage would leave him more susceptible to “antisocial behaviour” and an increased risk of substance abuse.

Since the attack, Martin's life has “gone down in a spiral,” according to Grabavac, and he's overdosed on fentanyl several times.

“There's been a third time where Mr. Martin Sr. (the victim's father) has had to save his son a couple weeks ago with CPR,” Grabavac told the court. “The assault has had a devastating effect on Mr. Martin ... they've described him before and they've described Mr. Martin afterwards, and it's just devastating.”

The Crown is calling for a 15 to 18 month jail sentence for O'Brien, saying the bouncer abused his position of trust and authority. As for Kaplan, Crown is asking for a sentence of 15 to 18 months.

Meanwhile, O'Brien's counsel argued that 12 months of probation and a fine would be more appropriate for the former bouncer. In a letter to the court, O'Brien's father said his son has never had a speeding ticket, let alone a criminal charge, and he's known to his friends as a “gentle giant. O'Brien's extended family and friends filled much of the courtroom Friday.

“This was a good person who had a bad lapse in judgement,” Johnson said of his client.

While a conditional discharge can't be applied to Kaplan's aggravated assault charge, his lawyer argued a suspended sentence, where he serves a period of probation in the community but will still have a criminal record, would be appropriate.

“Young people do stupid things under alcohol all the time,” said Kaplan's lawyer, Ken Westlake.

“Sometimes young people who do stupid things under alcohol end up being convicted of very serious offences and go to jail for a period of time,” retorted Crown prosecutor Grabavac.  



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