‘I beat the charge the last time’
Volatile defendant Joshua Daniel Grant Burden, 49, who’s awaiting sentencing for setting fire to downtown business, found fit but now claims he was already acquitted of arson
In yet another bizarre twist to a high-profile arson case, a homeless man now claims he’d previously been acquitted of the charges and had been represented by an apparently non-existent lawyer.
Joshua Daniel Grant Burden, 49, of no fixed address, was supposed to be sentenced last week in Fredericton provincial court for several offences to which he’d previously pleaded guilty, including an Oct. 29 count of causing damage by fire to MacTavish’s Source for Sports on Queen Street.
However, during the sentencing hearing before Judge Lyne Raymond on Feb. 27, Burden claimed he hadn’t set that fire, but rather a different one in the nearby Victoria Circle roundabout.
Nevertheless, he insisted on being sentenced for a crime he claimed he hadn’t committed.