Tara Laker - Prosecutor, BC Prosecution Service
Vancouver, BC V6A 2S8
Tara Laker was the primary (senior) prosecutor in 244069-10-BC along with Ryan Elias. Though it seems she took over the case from Elliot Poll shortly before the trial started. The first I'd heard of her was the first day of the trial.
On that case, I was charged with three counts of violating the conditions of my probation Probation Order, 244069-8-B:
- Count 1: by failing to report for probation as directed (Condition 4);
- Count 2: by failing to take down the Desiree Capuano website within 48 hours of my release from custody (Condition 4);
- Count 3: by publishing information about Desiree Capuano (Condition 6).
While not nearly as sleazy and scummy as prosecutors Mark Myhre, Chris Johnson, and Bernie Wolfe, Laker did engage in some sketchy tactics, like:
- on the first day of the trial, announcing that they're going to be calling an expert witness (Robin Shook) which caused the end of the trial to be delayed at least 30 days (because they're required to provide 30 days notice for expert witnesses);
- tampering with their witness Johnny Lam, getting him to change his testimony when she realized Lam's first (truthful) testimony destroyed her entire case against me;
- using evidence from my phone even though it was extracted and searched after the warrant had expired ...
Hmm. Okay, maybe she's not really that different from Johnson and Wolfe after all.
Laker Offers Me A Plea of Time Served; I Decline
On the first day of the trial, 2023-01-23, in the courtroom but before court began, Laker came over to me and introduced herself. She was very polite. Perhaps, too polite. And too bubbly. It all seemed so phony, insincere.
Almost immediately, she offered me a plea agreement. She said if I agree to plead guilty to counts 2 and 3, she would drop count 1, and request, if I recall correctly, a 12 month prison sentence. A 12 month sentence would result in an actual time served of eight months. As of that point, I had already been in custody on those charges since 2022-05-16, which would be eight months. So, basically, Laker was offering a sentence of time served, meaning I would likely be released that day, if I plead guilty to the two counts related to the website. I said no.
Laker was willing to drop Count 1, about me failing to report as directed, but that meant nothing because I was only required to report one time, upon my release, and I did report that one time. I had the notes from the probation officer to prove it.
The Necessity of Having the Trial
Also, Laker, like all the other prosecutors, was completely oblivious to the fact that having a trial was critical to my objectives.
In order to be able to prove the BC judges blatantly ignore exculpatory evidence, claim things occurred or were said at trial which hadn't, deny things occurred which actually did occur, refuse to allow the defense to present evidence that the prosecutor is lying, and deliberately misrepresent the evidence which was presented, there had to be a trial.
Also, without trials I would not have been able to catch and publish proof of Vancouver Police detectives, RCMP investigators, and CBSA officers lying under oath, on the witness stand, and in official correspondences. Vancouver Police IT Manager Johnny Lam would not have testified and, therefore, would not have perjured himself.
So even though I knew I would be found guilty of at least one charge - not because I was guilty or because the prosecution had sufficient evidence to support the charges, but because of how corrupt the BC justice system is - and even though I knew going to trial would result in a longer sentence, I had to have a trial in order to be able to obtain the proof of the corruption and misconduct I'd been claiming.
Without the trial, there wouldn't be much to write about this case.
Even if Laker had offered to drop all the charges and let me walk out of there at that moment, I still would have fought to have the trial.
Notice of Expert Witness
Shortly after court began, Laker informed the judge, Jennifer Oulton, that she intended to call an expert witness regarding information found on my phone. The prosecution had made no mention of calling any expert witnesses prior to that point. In fact, Poll had stated previously that they did not intend to use any information from my phone TR 2023-03-28 p29l31-44.
Section 657.3(3)(a) of the Canadian Criminal Code requires a party who intends to call an expert witness to provide notice of such at least 30 days before the commencement of the trial CCC §657.3(3)(a). Notice, the wording of the section states "before the commencement of the trial". Laker was required to notify me at least 30 days before the start of the trial, not on the day of the start of the trial. So you would think, based on that, I could have objected to the calling of the expert witness, and requested the prosecution not be permitted to call him. However, subsection (4)(a) goes on to say that if the party does not provide the required notice then the court may grant an adjournment to allow the other party to prepare to cross-examine that expert witness CCC §657.3(4)(a). So, the prosecution can wait until the day of the trial, then announce they intend to call an expert witness, and all the defense can do is request an adjournment, thereby delaying the trial for at least another 30 days while he continues to sit in custody.
I believe that was Laker's intention. She deliberately waited until the start of the trial to inform me of the expert witness so that the trial would be delayed another 30 days while I continued to sit in custody. As long as the defendant is in custody, there's always the chance they will give up and agree to a plea of time served just so they can get out of custody. That's one of the most common tactics the prosecutors use.
Having announced her intention to call the expert witness, the judge asked Laker if she had provided me the required 30 days notice. Laker said she had not. Laker proposed this serve as the 30 day notice and they would schedule the witness's testimony for some point after 30 days. In other words, even though the trial would start that day, it would be guaranteed not to finish until at least 30 days later. The trial was only scheduled for three days, so without that expert witness the trial was expected to be completed within three to four days after the start date. But by allowing the prosecution to provide the required notice on the first day of the trial it ensured the trial would not end until at least 30 days after it started. The judge granted the adjounment.
In a fair and reasonable system of justice, if the prosecutor states prior to trial that they do not intend to use any information from the defendant's phone, then at the start of the trial, they prosecutor decides they are going to use that information and have an expert witness testify about it, the judge would rule that it's too late and notice should have been provided at least 30 days prior to the trial. In a fair and reasonable system of justice, the expert witness's testimony would be excluded.
Witness Tampering; Subornation of Perjury
One of the main witnesses I wanted to be able to cross-examine at the trial was the IT Manager for the Vancouver Police Department (VPD), Johnny Lam.
Background - VPD's Network Logs
Upon my release from custody on 2022-04-18 for my prior conviction, I was required to "ensure the website is no longer available to anyone" 244069-8-B; Probation Order, Condition 4.
On 2022-05-03, VPD's Crime Data Analyst Catherine Meiklejohn attempted to access the website and was presented with a password prompt Hunchly capture of desicapuano.com. She didn't know the password and so she wasn't able to verify whether the website was actually online. But either way, the probation condition did not require the website to be taken down or to cease to exist - it only required the website to not be available to anyone TR 2022-02-25 p137l32-39, so unless the VPD knew of someone who had the password they had no basis for alleging the website was available to anyone.
On 2022-05-15, prosecutor David Layton claimed the website was online and publicly accessible again internal emails between Layton and Tomasson, 2022-05-15. He claimed he had accessed it. And yet, he never thought to take any screenshots, or print or save any of the pages he claimed he accessed.
On 2022-05-16, I was arrested for violating the probation condition by making the website publicly accessible again. During the interrogation, VPD Detective Amber McElroy claimed she was able to access the website earlier that day TR 2022-05-16 p11l30-32, p12l18. I told her I didn't believe her, because I knew the website was not online. I asked her to prove it, to bring the website up on a computer in front of me. She said she would, but when she returned, she claimed VPD's firewall was now not letting her access it TR 2022-05-16 p46l18-21. I knew that was false because if she could access it from VPD's network a few hours ago then she should still be able to access it during the interrogation.
I Request the Network Logs
Months later, during the pretrial proceedings, I had submitted a request to the court, for the prosecution to disclose the "firewall access logs" from the VPD's internal computer network. The purpose of the "firewall" logs was to prove that any attempts to access the website around the time of my arrest had failed, that the website wasn't online.
The judge agreed that that seemed like a reasonable request and ordered the prosecution to obtain the logs from the VPD and disclose them to me.
Johnny Lam was the person within the VPD who prepared the logs for McElroy to provide to Laker emails between Lam and McElroy, 2022-10-12 - 2022-10-24.
The Logs Prove VPD Was Lying; VPD and Laker Refuse to Realize It
I should mention, VPD uses a program called Splunk, which consolidates the logs from all of the network devices (e.g. servers, routers, proxies, et cetera), into a single, searchable database so that a sys admin does not have to search the logs of every device separately. What this means, is that the search Lam performed and the results he obtained were for the entire network, not just specific devices.
When I received the network logs, I discovered they didn't actually show that the attempts to access the website failed - they showed that no one in VPD even attempted to access the website at all VPD's network logs! There was not a single entry referencing the domain name "desicapuano.com". There were only entries relating to "desicapuano.com.siteindices.com", which was an analytics website which was not associated with the desicapuano.com site at all VPD capture of desicapuano.com.siteindices.com, 2022-05-03.
Amazingly, Laker, McElroy, and even Lam himself all thought that the log entries referring to "desicapuano.com.siteindices.com" were actually referring to "desicapuano.com". Somehow they all missed the ".siteindices.com" part of the domain name.
You might be thinking, "Come on, no way are they that stupid. Especially Lam - after all, he's the IT Manager for the VPD's internal networks - surely he knows how DNS works, what a subdomain is, and how to read his own network logs." But no, have a look at the email he sent McElroy email from Lam to McElroy, 2022-10-24. Lam says, "The 14 log entries all refer to different files from that site 'desicapuano.com'." Never underestimate the incopmetence of Canadian law enforcement ... or of Canadian government workers.
So the VPD, thinking the network logs actually proved the website was accessible and that it was accessed from within the VPD's network, provided the logs to the prosecution. Then, Laker and Elias, also thinking the logs actually proved their case, provided the logs to me.
I Give Laker Multiple Opportunities to Withdraw the Charges; She Refuses
Prior to the trial, I pointed out to Laker that the logs proved no one within the VPD even attempted to access the website. And if no one tried to access the website then how could they claim it was online? Laker, being a Canadian government employee, was so arrogant and smug that she was completely convinced I was wrong because, after all Lam had told her the 14 entries in the log prove the website was accessed on that day. A Canadian government employee is incapable of fathoming that any other Canadian government employee might possibly have been wrong about something.
After the trial started, but before Lam was called to testify, I again pointed out to Laker and Elias that the netwok logs actually prove no one from VPD even attempted to access the website. The logs proved VPD was lying about accessing the website. Laker and/or Elias then asked Lam about that, and Lam told them I had no idea what I was talking about, the logs clearly show the website was accessed repeatedly on that day.
Laker said to me, "I don't think the logs show what you think they show." Since she knew nothing about computers or network proxy/access logs, she was blindly relying on what Lam had told her.
I showed Laker the logs and pointed out the full domain name. I explained the entries in the log refer to a subdomain of "siteindices.com", which is an analytics website that has nothing to do with the Desiree Capuano website. I then showed her the Hunchly page capture of "desicapuano.com.siteindices.com", which shows that it obviously had nothing to do with the "desicapuano.com" website Hunchly webpage capture. Laker was unphased. Apparently, she had complete confidence in what VPD's IT Manager had told her.
Again, I just can't figure out how it was possible Lam didn't notice the domain name was "desicapuano.com.siteindices.com", not "desicapuano.com"? How is it possible somebody so grossly incompetent rose to the level of IT Manager within the VPD?
So now, here we are, on the day of Lam's testimony, 2023-03-07. Before court started, Laker, Elias, and I were in the courtroom, waiting for the judge to come in and start.
Laker's Conversation with Lam Before He Testifies
Elias handed me a letter describing a conversation he had with Lam the night before Letter from Elias, 2023-03-06. In the letter, Elias stated he and Laker interviewed Lam, during which they showed him the network log. The critical, or at least interesting, parts of the letter were:
- The log contained "records of various types including security logs and access logs".
- The search Lam performed would have captured attempted access by VPD users to desicapuano.com on 2025-05-16 - 2025-05-17.
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Lam believes he did not find more entries referring to 'desicapuano.com' because the logs had "rolled over", overwriting older entries.
That's wrong, because if it were the case, if the logs had rolled over, then the entries which were in the log would have already been overwritten as well.
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The entries in the log show the proxy server scanning elements from the website desicapuano.com, reflecting some attempt to access that website.
As discussed above, that is completely incorrect. The only entries in the logs were for the domain "siteindices.com", not "desicapuano.com".
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The activity of VPD users who do not have restrictions, including Hunchly users, would not be recorded in the log.
Pesonally, I don't believe this is what Lam told Elias and Laker. I believe this is what Elias and Laker told Lam they needed him to say.
As you'll see shortly, Lam completely contradicts this in his testimony on direct.
Moreover, I knew this statement was false. I already knew, and would be able to prove, that in fact, VPD's network was configured so that every user went through the proxy servers and was logged.
Upon reading the letter I realized even at that point, they all still believed the logs showed attempts to access the website at 'desicapuano.com'. I almost pissed my pants at how incredibly inept they all were - particularly since I had shown them the mistake they were making. It was such a simple and obvious mistake, but they just refused to believe they could be wrong.
Lam's Testimony
While Elias was cross-examining Lam, he asked Lam whether ALL internet accesses, by everyone on VPD's network would be logged. He expected Lam to say that certain users, such as Meiklejohn, would not be logged. But Lam responded, "Yes". Elias paused for a moment while he realized that Lam just testified that everyone's, including Meiklejohn's, access to the internet would be logged. Obviously, that would mean there should be entries in the logs, reflecting Meiklejohn's attempts to access the website. Lam's testimony at that point was correct.
Elias asked Lam further, "Specifically, would Catherine Meiklejohn's accesses to the internet be logged?" Lam responded, "Yes. Everybody's access would be logged." You may notice, that is contrary to what Elias claimed in his letter that Lam had said to them the day before.
Elias stopped and looked at Laker, who was pretending to be reading something because that's what laywers do when they're sitting idly in the courtroom, they stare blankly at papers, pretending to read. Elias asked the court for a moment, then went to have a whispered conversation with Laker. When Elias returned to his podium, he asked the court for a brief recess. The judge granted it.
Laker, Elias, and Lam all stepped outside the courtroom for about five minutes. When they returned, Elias continued with his direct-examination of Lam.
Elias said to Lam, "Earlier, you testified that Miss Meiklejohn's access to the internet would be logged." Lam agreed. Elias asked, "While we were outside, moments ago, were you able to confirm that with your office?" Lam responded, "Yes. I checked with my office and I was wrong. Miss Meiklejohn's access to the internet would not be logged." He seemed uncomfortable.
Lam completely contradicted his testimony from mere moments ago. So, Lam provides true and correct testimony, which the prosecutor was not expecting, and which completely destroyed the prosecutor's entire case; they abruptly stop and step outside for a few moments; then come back in and Lam completely contradicts the testimony he just gave, claiming he was "mistaken". It's his fucking job to know how the network is configured and to know that for liability, accountability, and evidentiary purposes not only must every user's internet activity be monitored, but especially every user like Meiklejohn who's internet activity might be used as evidence in a criminal trial!
Unfortunately, I can't prove what they discussed during the recess, but I would think it's pretty obvious. Laker told Lam his testimony does not work, he has to testify that Meiklejohn's access to the internet is not logged. But of course, that's just my speculation.
When I later appealed the conviction in this case, Lam's contradictory testimony was part of my appeal. Arguing that on appeal, would require the transcripts of his testimony on both direct and cross. However, both Legal Aid BC and the BC Prosecution Service refused to order or obtain the transcript of Lam's testimony on direct. They would only provide the transcripts of Lam's testimony on cross.