A physics professor and part-time security guard who's fighting to keep his home from civil forfeiture action testified in Kelowna court Friday that he had never seen and had no knowledge of any drug use in his home, despite living there when police raided it in June 2021 as part of a drug trafficking investigation.

It was the second police raid on the home in 16 months.

Desiree Kovacs is facing trial in Kelowna court this week on charges of possession of fentanyl and cocaine for the purpose of trafficking and two firearms charges. The charges date back to the June 18, 2021 RCMP execution of a search warrant at 623 Tomby Court in Kelowna's Lower Mission area.

That investigation had begun three weeks prior, when police started surveilling Jordy Moyan and another man on suspicion of drug trafficking.

According to a civil forfeiture lawsuit filed a month after the raid, police found a variety of drugs inside what's alleged to be Kovacs' bedroom, including 73 grams of “fentanyl/methamphetamine/crack cocaine,” 16.6 grams of fentanyl, 64.5 grams of hydromorphone, along with a shotgun, ammunition and a flare gun. The suit also says police found 125 grams of fentanyl, 112 grams of methamphetamine and a gram of crack cocaine where Moyan was allegedly living, along with a Taser and a crossbow.

Photo: Kelowna RCMP

Drugs and weapons found during a June 2021 police raid on Kelowna's Tomby Court.

Denied knowledge of drug use

But Friday morning, homeowner Gregory Ballentine took the stand and said he was unaware anyone in the house was using drugs. He said he had a strict no-drugs policy.

Ballentine is a physics professor who has worked locally at Okanagan College and more recently in Manitoba. He also worked as a security guard back in 2021, when he also taught classes online during the pandemic while living at his Tomby Court home.

He had bought the home in 2014 and moved in with his then-partner, Christine McArthur. But he testified that when he would travel out of town for work beginning around 2019, McArthur would bring in tenants into his home against his wishes.

“I never received a cent of rent from any one of these idiot tenants that were in the house,” Ballentine said.

He met McArthur in 2007, and while he testified that he never saw McArthur, or anyone else in the house, using drugs, he believes McArthur may have started using some time in 2022.

“She had been great for the first 10,12 years and then her mother dying seemed to put her into a loop she never recovered from,” Ballentine testified.

He said he had allowed McArthur to have one or two tenants in the beginning, but “it got out of control.” Despite police raiding the home in February 2020 as part of a drug trafficking investigation, Ballentine said under cross examination that it was “debatable” that things had been out of control before the June 2021 raid.

When asked if he saw lots of people coming and going from the house, Ballentine said: “If what you're suggesting is that there were drug trafficking in the house, I definitely can say I did not see sufficient number of people for that to be something I believed to be true.”

He denied ever using drugs with any of the people in the home.

“Nobody to my knowledge used drugs in the house. If they did, they'd probably be dead by now, I had no tolerance for that,” Ballentine testified.

He said he wasn't aware of any drugs in the home until he read a Castanet article a few days after the raid that showed the drugs and weapons police had seized from the home.

'I'm telling the truth'

A month after the June 2021 raid, the BC Civil Forfeiture Office filed a suit in BC Supreme Court, seeking the seizure of Ballentine's home, alleging it had been purchased with proceeds of crime.

Despite a judge ruling in December 2022 that the government hadn't provided “a shred of evidence” to support the allegation, the forfeiture action is still ongoing.

During cross examination, Kovacs' defence counsel Paul McMurray suggested that Ballantine was only testifying about having no knowledge of drugs in the house because of that pending civil action.

“You're aware that if it's proven that you were either aware of or willfully blind to the sale of drugs in your house, that you may be liable to forfeiture [of your home]. So your position has to be that you knew nothing about anything,” McMurray said.

“My position has to be the truth, I swore to tell the truth and I'm telling the truth,” Ballentine responded.

Never called police on Kovacs

Kovacs had moved into the home about two weeks prior to the June 18 raid and Ballentine said he argued with her on multiple occasions, trying to get her to leave. He said Kovacs' room was locked with a padlock and she had a “yappy” dog in the room.

“I would hear the dog and that was a problem for me. That was yet another reason she was not going to stay,” Ballentine said. “I would complain about the dog and she would yell back through the locked door, disrespectful things often.”

He said he intended to call police to kick her out, but he never found the right time.

Ballentine and McArthur split up about two years ago and Ballentine successfully sought a protection order against her. He said in court that several of the “idiots that were around her” have since been convicted of assaulting him and damaging his home, and he said there was even an attempt to burn down his home.

“I believe [McArthur] may have been the mastermind, but she was not the labour,” Ballentine said.

Significant sentence for co-accused

After testimony from several RCMP officers Thursday and Friday, the Crown has likely wrapped up the bulk of its case against Kovacs. But with Kovacs' defence not ready to proceed Friday, the trial was postponed to a further date that has yet to be set.

While Kovacs trial will continue, her co-accused's cases were settled earlier this month. Jordy Moyan, who was the subject of the initial police investigation, pleaded guilty to possession for the purpose of trafficking back on April 1 to was sentenced to 662 days in jail.

Moyan has a long history with the criminal justice system dating back to his teenage years. He served a significant jail sentence for a 2015 aggravated assault, when he stabbed a fellow drug dealer over an unpaid debt.

As a result of Moyan's plea deal, the Crown stayed charges against Kirsten Amundrud.