Theft:
Fifty-three-year-old Simon Nash pleaded guilty yesterday to stealing geophone equipment used by SWN in it's seismic testing exploration operations for shale gas around the province. Nash appeared at the court house in Fredericton for trial to answer for the charges, but opted to plead guilty instead.
Arrested on August 18 around the time of the citizen blockade of company operations in Stanley, Nash was caught twice in one evening by RCMP on separate offences.
Nash was also expected to stand trial for those offences yesterday, which included impaired driving and failing to stop for police. He also opted to plead guilty to those crimes as well.
Nash will be back in court for sentencing on all matters November 22nd at 10 am in Fredericton.
Assaults:
When this publication spoke to Geokinetics operations manager Mark Anderson from his office in Calgary on August 24th, he stated two assault complaints had also been filed with RCMP due to seismic staff being roughed up. Anderson didn't mention where the assaults took place, nor did the Mounties' media relations office have anything come across it's desk mentioning charges, or that an investigation was ongoing into the matter.
We contacted the RCMP today to followup on those charges. J Division media relations officer Constable Julie Rogers-Marsh was unaware of anything to report on the matter, but offered to make some inquiries and get back to us. We await her response.
UPDATE: Constable Rogers-Marsh just called us and said there was an investigation into the assault complaints, however, it was concluded with no charges being laid due to a lack of evidence.
