Judge considers dangerous offender label for “Cowboy” Nowdlak

GREG YOUNGER-LEWIS

Mosesee “Cowboy” Nowdlak, a life-long criminal in Iqaluit, is unwilling to break his pattern of violence – even after spending more than half his life behind bars, a territorial court heard last week.

Nowdlak, who turns 40 tomorrow, carries a criminal record with at least 60 convictions for charges ranging from break-and-enter to arson and aggravated assault.

His most recent attack – bludgeoning a man’s head with a hammer – has prompted the Crown’s office to ask the courts to label him a dangerous offender.

Justice Earl Johnson is considering the Crown’s request as part of Nowdlak’s sentencing for the May 2001 attack, which occurred in Iqaluit months after he was released from a federal penitentiary down south.

As a dangerous offender, Nowdlak would face seven years in prison before becoming eligible for parole. He’s currently in prison for breaking into Nunavut Arctic College offices, and later assaulting a woman, and then torching an apartment when he found that his contraband liquor was missing at a party.

During her closing arguments at last week’s hearing, Crown lawyer Christine Gagnon produced a long list of crimes that Nowdlak has committed, dating back to 1983.

These include strangling his girlfriend several times, beating up family members, and stabbing a man through the chest with a seven-inch knife.

In almost every incident, Nowdlak was trying to get cash, booze, drugs, or revenge, according to Gagnon.

“His violence is calculated,” she said last Friday in an Iqaluit courtroom. “He uses it as his means to obtain something. This is someone who does what he needs to do to get what he wants. Violence is a part of his life.”

Nowdlak, a short wiry man, spent most of the hearing leaning forward in his chair, shaking his head, and whispering to his lawyer as he took notes.

Nowdlak has refused to participate in psychiatric assessments for the hearing, leading defence lawyers to argue that the Crown’s case is incomplete.

Dr. Philip Klassen, of Toronto, testified for the Crown late last year, claiming that Nowdlak could be prone to future violence, based on past medical exams.

But defence lawyer Tom Boyd accused the psychiatrist of basing his evidence on “hearsay” and criticized him for using a test that isn’t adapted to Inuit language and culture.

Defence lawyers argue that Nowdlak’s brain should be examined before he’s sentenced as a dangerous offender, because he suffered a head injury as a child. They said the damage might have affected his behaviour later in life.

But it’s Nowdlak’s life – not any medical condition – that shows he fits the definition of a dangerous offender, according to the Crown.

The Crown claims he fits this definition of having “persistent aggressive behaviour” because he violently breaks the law, both in and out of jail.

In prison, Nowdlak assaulted a warden, guards, other prisoners, and family. At one point, he kicked a man in the head while he was unconscious.

Out of prison, Nowdlak has terrorized family and lovers, the court heard. His sister, Lizzie, testified at the hearing that everyone but her is afraid to stand up to him.

He broke one brother’s jaw in a fight over a money belt, and beat up another brother with a mop handle “because he didn’t like the way [his brother] treated his sister.” Once, Nowdlak’s parole was rejected after he beat up his father for refusing to share his snowmobile.

In the late 1990s, he moved to Pond Inlet, where he lived with a woman who quickly became afraid of his temper.

Their relationship ended after the woman refused to give Nowdlak money for gambling. Later that night, he choked her three times before trashing the house, and destroying most of her belongings.

Before his arrest, he stabbed a man in the stomach.

His sister Lizzie testified that Nowdlak hasn’t got along with people ever since he was a child.

Nowdlak lived in a children’s hospital in Montreal until he was five years old. When he returned to Iqaluit, he struggled with family, because he only spoke French, while his family spoke Inuktitut. At school, children teased him because of his bow-shaped legs.

“He was angry,” his sister said, according to court documents. “He said he was okay but there was a problem with him that we couldn’t point out. …. It got to the point where he’d get upset with us because he didn’t have any drugs.

“The way he does things, [he says] ‘it’s others’ fault. He wanted everybody else to change, to support him.”

Justice Johnson said he would release his decision on Sept. 9.