High-risk offender released in Halifax charged with harassment and threats
Halifax Regional Police have charged a high-risk offender who was released into the community three months ago with criminal harassment and other crimes.
In October, police advised the public that Gamon Jay Leacock,49, was living in the community after being released from federal prison, where he served a 14-year sentence for nine counts of robbery, six of uttering threats, and two each of sexual assault with a weapon, forcible confinement, adminstering a noxious substance and assault, and single counts of criminal harassment, escape from lawful custody, assaulting a peace officer with weapon, intimidation of a justice system participant, theft under $5,000, failing to comply with a court order and failing to stop at a motor vehicle accident.
Leacock had last been in court for a status update Dec. 6, but police arrested him Thursday night after a woman called police Dec. 28 to say that Leacock had broken into her home on a number of occasions and threatened her in order to obrtain property and money.
The woman is known to Leacock, police say, and she told them the incidents occurred between October and December.
Const. John MacLeod said police aren’t providing further details to protect the privacy and well-being of the complainant.
Besides harassment, Leacock is charged with extortion, fraud under $5,000, uttering threats, four counts of use and possession of stolen credit cards, unlawfully being in a dwelling house, theft under $5,000 and two counts of failing to comply with release conditions.
He is scheduled to appear in Dartmouth provincial court Friday to be arraigned on the charges.
He is also due in Halifax provincial court Tuesday to set dates on two allegations of failing to comply with a Sex Offender Information Registration Act order and for two peace bond applications against him. One of those involves fear of personal safety.
Among the crimes he was convicted for in 2009, Leacock forced a friend’s daughter and her partner to smoke crack cocaine and perform sex acts after assaulting them. He threatened to kill the couple, sexually assaulted them, and stole their bank cards and PINs..
The parole board in a previous decision descibed Leacock as having “potential for flagrant aggressiveness,” and noted that a psychological assessment in 2019 said that “there is an unacceptably high risk that your re-offending would cause serious physical harm.”
Leacock has 63 Criminal Code convictions and a series of institutional infractions from his time behind bars.
