Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Hey, it's Nancy. Before we begin today, I just wanted to let you know that you can listen to Crime Beat early and ad-free on Amazon Music, included with Prime. A listener's note. The following episode contains coarse language, adult themes, and content of a violent and disturbing nature and may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised.
In the summer of 1999, the RCMP in central Alberta investigated a horrific case involving two children. A father murdered his little girl and tried to kill his son. The case has haunted investigators for decades, but it was particularly traumatic for one officer because it launched a completely unrelated series of events that ultimately led to him being wrongfully accused of rape.
and it would leave his life torn in pieces. So what happens is I get a phone call saying, John, I've got some bad news for you. He says, are you sitting down? I'm at work. I says, yeah, yeah. He says, get yourself into a private room. And so anyhow, I go to close the door and he says, John, he says, you're being charged.
I'm Nancy Hixt, a crime reporter for Global News. Today, I'll share part two of this special Crime Beat series and explain the mind-blowing twists and turns of this case. This is the conclusion of Scarred But Not Broken. ♪
If you haven't listened to the first part of this story yet, I recommend stopping and listening to that episode first. It's important to know the details from that high-profile case because if it weren't for that tragic and disturbing crime involving two children, today's story may never have happened.
In the summer of 1999, veteran RCMP Constable John Hudak was called to the Rocky Mountain House Hospital to investigate. A van pulled into the ambulance bay, driven by a father of two. Inside the vehicle, an attending physician discovered a little girl who had been smothered to death and a seven-year-old boy whose throat had been cut.
During the course of the investigation, Hudak dealt with a lot of staff at the hospital. They were treated as potential witnesses. Things started unfolding. The case goes, you know, it's going to be going before the courts. This is pretty traumatic. You know, nursing staff, the hospital staff, the doctors that had to deal with this situation,
it's incumbent upon somebody to go back and talk to them and say, "Okay, look, here's what's happened. Here's where things are going." And then with having been in the hospital on other matters, some of them would say, "Hey, so what's going on on this file? Where it's at?" So I keep them abreast of where things were.
One of the things that ended up happening is I had a request to maybe go and talk to the hospital staff and let them know because...
If things did go to trial, some of them are going to have to come and testify as witnesses. So I wanted to kind of try to minimize any of their concerns. One of the nurses who was at the hospital on the day of the incident was Mildred Johnson. Hudak said she stood out because she asked a lot of questions. Well, she's trying to build a little bit of a bond. She tells me that she's
Yeah, she understands this stuff. She worked in major trauma centers and emergency departments down near Houston, Texas for a lot of years. And she's seen a lot of stuff, a lot of disturbing stuff, much like I had. And that she has a...
relative in the RCMP and he's posted with the drug section in Red Deer and maybe I might know him and of course I did know him but you know it's just stuff with the conversation and I'm kind of thinking hold on a second this isn't
I'm not comfortable with this. And so I deliberately positioned myself that I wasn't close to this person in this room. You know, I maintained my distance. And there was just something that just my spidey senses just told me, there's something just not right here. Then, in January of 2000, about four months after the murder investigation began, Hudak was out for breakfast in Rocky Mountain House.
He said a waitress told him Mildred Johnson was asking about him. At the time, Hudak was 46 and she was two years shy of 60. I'd been aware that this particular nurse had a friend that had made some inquiries in regard to my marital status and family.
Maybe if I would be interested in going out to the theater with her, going to dinner shows or things like this. And I'd relate to that particular friend that no, I wasn't interested. As it turned out, I was already, I was seeing somebody in Red Deer at that particular time. He didn't think much of the inquiry and brushed it off.
Two months later, in March of 2000, Johnson filed a complaint against Hudak. Larry Russell was the sergeant of the Rocky Mountain House RCMP detachment at the time. The first time I heard of Mildred Johnson is Dan Lyon, the staff sergeant, was still there at that time. And he came to me one day and he said that he had found this Mildred Johnson had made a complaint against Constable Hudak.
And to quote him, he said that he had dealt with her on a previous complaint and he really didn't think he could deal with her again and asked if I would mind looking after it. And I mean, it's just, I mean, a commonplace thing. I mean, there's complaints come in, you deal with them. And I said, sure, no problem. I can do that. Russell called Mildred Johnson and set up a meeting between the three of them to discuss her complaint against Hudak. And she said, advised that...
constable hudak was uh taking cocaine so i said well first off what proof do you have that you can supply me uh that he's he's uh engaging in this uh habit well she says none and anyway long story short she had nothing other than just saying that he was taking cocaine she had no evidence no reason of suspicion or anything to present to give me some reason
to suspect that there was some validity to her complaint. Well, I just about came out of my chair. At no time have I ever taken any non-prescription medication, certainly not cocaine. And that I don't even take, I'm not even on any prescription medication. And, you know, my medical records will show that. I explained to her that she really had to be careful
accusing somebody, especially a police officer of a serious offense without having any kind of information or proof to back it up. Russell said that during their conversation he didn't know about Mildred Johnson's involvement as a witness in the Hogg case
or that she had inquired about Hudak's relationship status a few months earlier. It ended very well, actually. You know, I explained to her, I said, you know, I'll make note of your complaint, but I said, unless if you have something, I said, I'm fairly well familiar with the cause of Hudak. I have seen no indication of any kind of drug use. I've heard nothing wrong.
in this regard. So I said, but if something else comes up, give me another call. And she seemed quite satisfied with that. And that's the way it ended. Russell told me Mildred Johnson's complaint was deemed unfounded. Then she lodged another complaint. She related that I did not deal with her complaint properly and that I was rude to her.
And she left the office very unhappy. Russell said he was the subject of an official investigation by the RCMP. As with the first complaint against Hudak, he said this one was also deemed unfounded. I basically thought that that would be the end of it.
I should note, none of the potential witnesses in the murder case had to testify. In February 2000, the father, Brian Hogg, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and attempted murder. Then, in May of 2000, Mildred Johnson filed another complaint against Hudak.
This time, Johnson alleged Hudak was, quote, intimidating and threatening, following a phone conversation by Johnson to Hudak's residence. Keep in mind, Hudak said he never gave his number to Johnson, and he had no personal relationship with her. In the complaint, Johnson said the call to his home was made in error and claimed Hudak called her back to ask why she was calling his house.
Johnson went on to allege, quote, Documents obtained by Global News reveal Hudak received three hang-up calls at his residence on April 30, 2000, while he was asleep and off-duty.
At least two of those calls were deemed to be from Johnson's residence. After the third call, Hudak used the redial feature to call Johnson back. Johnson claimed it was a misdial, and Hudak told her to use more discretion when using the phone.
Later that night, Johnson called him back angry and said, quote, he was the worst piece of protoplasm she had ever known and that he better not shove FOIP down her throat again. In the end, the RCMP deemed Hudak did not violate the RCMP code of conduct.
Less than two months later, on June 14, 2000, just after 8 p.m., there was another call to Hudak's home. She actually comes out and she says, why did you come to my house in February and do what you did? I mean, and I says, I don't know what you're talking about. And she says...
I know maybe, well, I think you do, John. I think we both know what you're talking about. And then at that particular point, I think this is right off of the rail. So I say to her, okay, well, look, you're familiar with the complaint process. You go ahead and you pursue your complaint. And she says, okay. And I says, good night. She says, all right.
The next night, at 9 p.m., yet another call to Hudak's home. She says, this is Millie Johnson again, and I'm calling because I really need to get some answers from you. And my response to her is, I don't have anything to say to you, Millie. And then she says, well...
I'm just hoping that we could talk this out and maybe resolve some issues here. My response to her was, I don't have anything to say to you. I explained to you last night on the phone. And she says, wait a minute, John. Now, wait a minute. And I said, no. And she says, here. And I says, no, you listen. She says, hear me out. And I says, no. And then she says, no, you listen to me and hear me out. I want to, first of all, I want to know
Why it was that you came to my house and raped me like you did, and I need to know what you're pulling here. Why did you do that? Hudak said he was floored. This time, Mildred Johnson was accusing him of rape. This woman is right off her rocker.
I don't even know where her house is, what she's alleging. So, you know what? Lodge your complaint. It'll be investigated. I've got no problem with that. But I've got absolutely no time. I'm getting ready to go to work. And, you know, I've got no time to deal with this.
I go to work, I go to work. I call in and I say, I'm going to be late for work because I'm rattled. I'm thinking, what the hell is going on here? I'm getting ready to go to work and I get confronted with a phone call like this. But I had to sit down and just kind of put my head in my hands and think, okay.
What the hell is going on here? And I'm going to go in and I'm going to go and I'm going to start up a complaint against this woman for harassing phone calls. I'm going in and I'm going to talk with the shift supervisor and I'm going to let him know that here's what's happened. Here's why I'm late for work and here's what I'm doing.
And I'm opening up a complaint myself and saying, this was a very, very disturbing phone call. I've been told that, hey, look, you know, John, you've got to have a thicker skin and stuff like that as a member. Well, you know what? She's crossed the line and somebody's going to have to sit down and go and talk to her. Hudak told me the next day his shift supervisor spoke to Johnson.
Documents state the RCMP shift supervisor notified Johnson's boss at the hospital of concerns the nurse was making harassing phone calls to Hudak.
The nursing supervisor said she would follow up with Johnson. Hudak thought that would be the end of it. But just over two months later, on August 23, 2000... So I'm working day shift at the detachment in Rocky. And I get notified that there's a couple of members from Red Deer that are wanting to talk to me.
Hudak said he was in shock and asked to call a lawyer. His advice to me is, John,
Do not say anything at all. And I said, well, I says, nothing happened here. I have no problem at all in sitting down and talking to these guys. And he says, no, don't say anything at all.
Hudak told me he wanted to prove his innocence, and it was hard to stay silent as the officers pushed.
You know, one of the things we can ask you to take a polygraph examination, but as you know, neither one of us are polygraph operators, so that can't happen. And, uh...
So we're not able to do that today, but would you consent to providing a DNA sample? Well, I had just been on a DNA sampling course a few months before because it was just a new thing that was coming out. So I knew the process and I knew that if I refused, they could take it forcibly if they had a warrant.
And so anyhow, I said, well, just hold on a second here. I said, I need to go make another phone call. So I go and try to get a hold of Will again. I can't get a hold of him, but I get a hold of another lawyer. And I said, look, here's what I've been asked. I said...
When Hudak went back into the room with the two investigators, he learned they already had a warrant. They collected a DNA sample right then and there at the Rocky Mountain House Detachment.
That's when he went against all of the advice his lawyer gave him. And I said, guys, I said, I need to talk to you about something here. So they said, yeah. And so I went and I closed the door and I said, look, I'm going to tell you guys right now, the way that you've made me feel here is that you've made me feel like
worse than a common criminal. And I'm really upset about this. And when those results come back from the DNA analysis and it shows that it's not me, I'm going to be looking for an explanation. And the words that I used at that particular time was, "And you better have that f***ing explanation."
Mildred Johnson claimed that on February 8th, 2000, Hudak went to her home and sexually assaulted her on her couch. That would have been three days before Brian Hogg pleaded guilty to murdering his daughter and attempting to kill his son. Hudak said he didn't even know where Mildred Johnson lived and he'd never been to her house.
He wondered what evidence could the investigators possibly have? For police to get a warrant, they need to file something called an information to obtain or an ITO. Hudak said his defense lawyer went to court to get those documents to gain some insight on the investigation. He says, what have you done here to, have you pissed somebody off in the force? And
I said, "No, no, why?" He says, "Man, I couldn't believe the stuff that I was reading in this information to obtain and what they're doing. They're coming at you really hard." He says, "I've never seen anything like this."
It was only after his lawyer went through the ITO that Hudak learned that the strange phone calls he received from Mildred Johnson in June were set up and recorded by the RCMP in hopes of gaining a confession.
Yeah, I have no idea. They've got a covert investigation going on on me on several months and I have no idea this thing's going on. So basically the allegations are that I went to her house, that I raped her and then I supposedly told her that if she reported it that I uttered death threats to her.
At that point, Larry Russell was the staff sergeant of the Rocky Mountain House Detachment. He told me he believed this complaint would be deemed unfounded as well. Knowing Constable Hudak, knowing Mildred Johnson and the whole thing, I just kind of thought at that time that it would be an investigation to the point where they would find out that she was not credible, which she had shown previously.
with her other complaints that turned out not to be credible and that it really wouldn't go anywhere. Yet the investigation continued. Documents obtained by Global News shed some light on how this investigation all started. Remember how Johnson's boss was going to speak to her about the phone calls she made to Hudak? It was during that conversation that Johnson alleged Hudak had shown up at her home and raped her.
Her boss later told police Johnson couldn't give a date, other than it was in February sometime. She said she asked Johnson if she kept her undergarments or anything else that might corroborate the story, and Johnson said she didn't. Her boss said she encouraged her to seek counseling.
Documents state Johnson then reached out to a local sexual assault center, again alleging she was raped by a member of the Rocky Mountain House RCMP detachment. They helped coordinate a time for Johnson to meet with police. Her house was examined by forensic crime scenes officers. That included the couch where Mildred Johnson alleged the sexual assault took place.
They found a semen stain that was sent away for testing, along with the sample of Hudak's DNA.
Hudak said he already knew what the outcome of that test would be, but he waited to hear the words. It comes back. It's not me, which was no big surprise to me. Then I'm thinking, OK, I'm going to be absolved. DNA's come back. You know, there's nothing to this. Hudak was ready to put it all behind him. But on October 17th, 2000,
Just over a year after Hudak first dealt with Mildred Johnson as a witness in the Hogg murder investigation, things took an unexpected turn. So what happens is I get a phone call saying, John, I've got some bad news for you.
He says, are you sitting down? I'm at work. And he says, yeah, yeah. He says, get yourself into a private room. And so anyhow, I go to close the door. And he says, John, he says, you're being charged. John Hudak was charged with sexual assault.
The decision to charge Hudak came as a surprise to a lot of his colleagues, including Larry Russell. Well, in all my service, I never, ever saw an investigation go the way that this investigation went. There was many different times in the investigation where things that supposedly happened were proved that didn't happen and
different things and it just didn't seem that it could be stopped. Again, it reminded me of, I guess basically like a volcano, once it erupts and the lava starts down the hill, there's no way of stopping it and that seemed to be what the situation was with this investigation. It seemed no matter what happened, the investigation was going to continue. There was absolutely no evidence whatsoever, so they weren't pushing any evidence, there was no evidence whatsoever
Hudak was suspended from duty. He had to be photographed and fingerprinted like anyone else accused of a criminal offense.
And it would soon be breaking news, veteran RCMP officer charged with sexual assault. And I'll never ever forget it. I was just northwest of Besaddle and I was listening to 770 QR radio. And it was six o'clock in the morning and the news headlines were Mounties go after one of their own.
This is as damaging as a person could have in their career. Because the reality is there will be certain members of the public who will choose to believe what they want to believe, regardless of the evidence. There will be certain people in the RCMP who will choose to believe what they want to believe, regardless of the evidence. I was there the day he made his first court appearance.
He said he couldn't speak to me, but that one day he would allow me to share his story. Slowly, details of what Mildred Johnson was alleging were made public. Yeah, well, she gets in and she says, you know, I came to the house under the guise of talking to her about this hog murder investigation, the one where the two kids, the one kid had been murdered and the other one had been...
slashed and she said I forced myself into the house and that I forced her on a sofa and that I had my way with her on the sofa and then she said then I ended up leaving. She ended up going and she went and had a shower a number of times and then she went and she tried to clean her sofa and
And then she goes on, she talks about how she didn't go and talk to anybody about it and report it. She didn't call the police. She didn't talk to any of her friends, her co-workers or anybody. But she just kept it to herself. And then she's just disgusted with this alleged scene of the crime, the sofa. So she's called a...
professional cleaning company in to clean her sofa and so she goes through that. We asked for a receipt from this cleaning company obviously if she's at a professional cleaning company come in. Okay well let's see the receipt. Well she's having a hard time coming up with the receipt. I'll come back to the receipt in a minute. It would turn out to be key evidence in this case.
But first, I need to introduce you to Terry Blagborn, a retired officer who served nearly 30 years with the RCMP. Back in the early 2000s, he was a private investigator. I was approached by a senior agent of the Attorney General's Department of Alberta. He took me aside and said, Terry, there's something really bad going on. This guy needs your help. As a prosecutor, he quickly recognized there were some
He told me his source within Alberta Justice believed Hudak was being wrongfully prosecuted. Blagborn met with Hudak and his lawyer and was hired to review details of the case. He said the first step was a polygraph, which Hudak took no issue with as he had nothing to hide. The test was taken to some senior polygraph operators.
Blackburn said he confronted the lead RCMP investigator with the results. And I gave him a list of the names of the investigators.
Blackbourne told me the officer wouldn't listen to him, even though they had known each other for many years.
So he continued to review the case and spoke with one of Mildred Johnson's sisters. She said it's all a lie. It's all bullshit. It's all wrong. It's all a lie. She's lying. I know she's lying. She's a pathological liar. She lies about everything.
Mildred Johnson's sister also told police she had a problem with her credibility and that she had a habit of lying, and she believed Johnson had always had an infatuation with the RCMP and said, quote, her only ambition was to be a good nurse and marry a Mountie. The sister said Johnson moved to Texas from central Alberta in the 70s and lived there for nearly 30 years.
Meanwhile, Hudak and his defense decided to send someone to Texas to do some digging. They hired Jim Thoreson, another former Mountie-turned-private investigator. On the 18th of June 2001, I headed down to Houston, Texas.
And I contacted a private investigator down there who had a very good reputation through a contact in Calgary. And I met with him and his wife down there and explained the situation. And he offered to give me full assistance. Thorson learned that Mildred Johnson was a nurse at several hospitals in Texas.
But more importantly, she had a criminal record there. We did track down some criminal charges on here after we were able to positively identify her through different documents and so on. Eventually, I learned that the file belonged to Humber Police Department. Now, Humber is kind of a city within the city down there. It's Houston.
as it's huge and they've got multiple cities within the cities there and Humber was one of them. I contacted the investigators down there and I explained my situation and they confirmed that this file number was in fact theirs.
Thoreson discovered the offenses happened in the late 80s, just over a decade before the alleged sexual assault in Rocky Mountain House. Her situation was that she had a boyfriend that she'd been with for some time, I guess. And consequently, he went with another woman and she got very jealous of him.
and she made some threatening phone calls to him and threatened to kill him, throw sulfuric acid in his daughter's face and that type of situation. She was charged under their criminal act down there and I received a certificate of conviction and she got six months, I believe it was six months probation and some fines.
Thorson said he accessed the entire file on Johnson and had copies of everything. In fact, he was looking at those same documents as we spoke. I sealed them for court purposes and retained the originals that I'd received from the Humber Police Department down there in the event that I might be required to testify in court.
if she didn't admit the fact that she had a criminal record down in Houston. It was very gratifying for me that I was able to find some stuff down in Houston that corroborated what we were feeling all along, that she had an axe to grind sort of a thing.
Through disclosure from the prosecution to defense, Hudak learned the RCMP became aware of Johnson's criminal record days after she filed her sexual assault complaint. In the meantime, back in Rocky Mountain House, there was still the issue of the receipt.
You'll recall Mildred Johnson said she tried to clean the couch where the alleged rape happened, but later decided to have it done professionally by a company called WillDo. At first, she told police she couldn't find the receipt for the cleaning service. Court documents show months later, in November of 2000, she ended up providing a receipt to investigators.
In covering this case, this was some of the most surprising evidence presented. At the top was a logo and the company name. It was dated February 21st, 2000, a little less than two weeks after the alleged sexual assault took place. It had her name and address hand-printed at the top.
Under the description of service, there was a handwritten note that said, steam clean and deodorize sofa. And it lists the price as $75. With the tax, the total cost was $80.25. And there was a note that said, paid.
A copy of the receipt was given to Hudak's lawyer as a part of disclosure. And we look at it, it is hokey. And we just said, this is the receipt? In January of 2001, Hudak's defense lawyer contacted police to see if he could take a look at the original provided to officers. He later met with the lead investigator and viewed the receipt, but something still seemed off.
They asked their private investigator, Terry Blagborn, to verify the receipt with the business. You get a copy of the receipt, and I look at it, and it's a strange-looking receipt. It doesn't look good. On the top of the receipt where the company name is, is a shadow around the car where the company name is on this receipt. But there's no shadow on the bottom of it.
Blackburn said he went to Will Do to verify the work and to inquire if they had the original receipt. I take it to the company that apparently did the work, cleaning the upholstery. The owner of the company immediately responds and says, that's not our receipt. That's not even close to our receipts. That is a fridge magnet that we leave on the furnaces that we clean.
Was it possible that police accepted a fake receipt from Mildred Johnson?
According to documents disclosed to HUDAC's defense, Wildew told police they felt the receipt was a fake. The logo matched their company magnets, which they left on customers' furnaces when they finished a job. The business said they did furnace work at Johnson's home in October of 2000, eight months after the alleged assault, but said they never went to her home before that.
Wildew also confirmed that on February 21st of 2000, the date on the receipt, their business wasn't open. It was a holiday. These guys are professional investigators. These guys are major crimes investigators. And they sat down and they've accepted a document like that.
Well, I was really, really inflamed by thinking, you know what? These people have lost their moral compass. Larry Russell, HUDAC's boss at the Rocky Mountain House Detachment, said he watched in disbelief. It just, it made no sense to me. I couldn't understand what was happening, why they would keep having their evidence refuted, but they still carried on. I couldn't grasp why.
why or what was happening. It just did not make sense to me. With the amount of evidence that they had against Constable Hudak, in an investigation that we took to the Crown Prosecutors, you couldn't have paid them to lay a charge. There's absolutely no way they would have proceeded with it because they would have said that there's no possibility of getting a conviction would have been their response.
The matter was set for trial, despite the fact that DNA evidence cleared Hudak because his DNA did not match the sample found on the couch. There was also what appeared to be a fake receipt, Johnson's own family accounts to police that she was a known liar, as well as her criminal past and the history of unfounded complaints against Hudak and other RCMP officers.
In February 2002, Mildred Johnson testified that two years earlier, on February 8th, at about 10.30 or 11 p.m., she was asleep on her loveseat when her doorbell rang. She said Hudak was standing at the door and he had some papers in his hand and said he needed to wrap things up involving the Hogg case.
Hudak had served her with a subpoena to testify two weeks earlier at the hospital. Johnson said she invited him in, he pushed her into the den, grabbed both of her arms, pushed her down on the sofa, and raped her. Then, after he left, she threw out the nightshirt she was wearing and cleaned the sofa repeatedly.
Johnson told court at one point she used bleach in a steam cleaner, then decided to have it professionally cleaned. When questioned about the validity of the receipt she provided, Johnson said she felt the original was faint. So she took it to the hospital and put it in the photocopier, thinking it might make it more legible.
She told court that didn't work, so she traced over what she thought were the lines on the invoice. She added she must have lost the original. During the trial, the operators of WillDo testified the receipt was not genuine. As well, an expert from the RCMP forensic lab determined the receipt was a composite document, not a tracing, as Johnson claimed.
I should add, during the trial, defense suggested Johnson was fixated with the RCMP and its members, pointing to a yearbook that noted her favorite saying as, quote, has anyone seen a cute Mountie? Johnson dismissed it and said that was when she was a teenager. When asked about her criminal history in Texas, she claimed she made a deal out of convenience, not because she was guilty.
John Hudak also testified in his own defense. He maintained his innocence as he had since the day he was first accused. I didn't know
I did not want people to say, first of all, I did not want to say, oh yeah, it's the police looking after the police. Oh yeah, this guy is a policeman. He knows how to cover his tracks. I know this much, that one of the things that a prosecutor likes is to get the accused on the stand. And I knew how far off the rails this investigation was and how far the prosecutor had extended himself on this investigation.
and that he knew that there was no substantial likelihood of conviction if he looked at the evidence with an objective mind, but he chose to disregard that, extend the prosecution wrongly against me, and I wanted a chance to stand up in court and say, "Okay, look, if you think you've got such a good case, I'm here. Give it your best shot."
I was in court on February 13, 2002, when Justice Jack Holmes handed down his decision. He said, "...in his respectful opinion, the manufacturing by Mrs. Johnson of the fake receipt for the purpose of submitting it as evidence against Constable Hudak has the serious effect of tainting her other testimony."
He also referred to the fact police couldn't find any incriminating DNA evidence and said staged phone calls by Johnson to Hudak weren't fruitful in obtaining an admission. Justice Holmes went on to say the court had little reason to doubt the evidence of Constable Hudak.
I'm going to read verbatim the last part of his judgment. Justice Holmes said, In conclusion, I find the prosecution has failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the charges against Constable Hudak. In fact, I wonder if this matter would have ever gone to trial if Constable Hudak had not been a policeman.
It seems to me the Crown has extended itself in this case to try to give the public the perception that policemen receive no special treatment if they're charged with criminal complaints. Unfortunately, a dedicated and respected policeman has been seriously maligned. There was applause in the courtroom as the judge spoke his final words. Constable Hudak is found not guilty.
You were in the courtroom at that particular time, Nancy, and I think you can probably remember the courtroom, all the seats were taken. There was a cheer from the people that were in the courtroom. And I just, to this day, everything just kind of got clouded. And all I remember is just turning around and hugging my family.
But this didn't end the court proceedings for Mildred Johnson. She ended up facing charges herself for lying and making up evidence.
On the eve of her trial, in December of 2003, Mildred Johnson pleaded guilty to two counts of perjury, uttering a forged document, and forgery.
In April of 2004, she was given a six-month conditional sentence, which means she served her time in the community. That was followed by a year of probation. For this episode, I reached out to her lawyer, but he declined to comment.
Interestingly, Johnson's sentence for wrongdoing was less time than Hudak spent waiting to stand trial to prove his innocence after she wrongfully accused him of sexual assault. For decades, Hudak has had to live with the stigma of being a cop charged with sexual assault. It's followed him for years, even though he was found not guilty. When stuff happens like this,
Hudak said he was frustrated. No action was ever taken against the RCMP members who investigated his case.
I've talked to many officers about it over the years, including Larry Russell. They're shocked it ever went to trial. I cannot get my head around it. I couldn't get my head around it at the time. I still can't. This kind of sits as an unbelievable black mark against the force, in my opinion. I would not want this to ever happen to anybody again, a member or a civilian person, a
Following his acquittal, Hudak's suspension from the RCMP was lifted and he was able to return to work. But he was also told he would need to leave Rocky Mountain House.
He said his own safety was a concern as Johnson continued to live in the community.
Rocky Mountain House was Hudak's final uniformed posting in Alberta. After his suspension, he took a posting with the Joint Intelligence Team at the G8 Summit in Kananaskis and then served briefly in B.C., where he retired in 2005.
After the trial, in September of 2002, three years after that chance meeting at the Rocky Mountain House Hospital while investigating the Hogg case, Hudak launched a lawsuit against the RCMP and Alberta Justice.
In November of 2007, it was settled out of court. Hudak had to sign a non-disclosure agreement, so he's unable to say exactly how much compensation he got. It was settled. I signed off for well under a million dollars. Well under a million. In my mind, this whole thing is never being about money. And once the number was arrived at...
Anybody that is familiar with the number will know that I stuck by my word and I said, "This is not about money."
As a part of the settlement, Kudak also received several letters of apology. I did get an official apology from a very well-respected member of the RCMP who was probably within the top five, if not top three, RCMP members in Canada at the time.
Alberta's Minister of Justice at the time also sent out a media release apologizing for the wrongful arrest and prosecution of John Hudak.
Ron Stevens said, quote, I deeply regret the anguish Mr. Hudak has been put through. He's a completely innocent man whom the justice system failed at the most fundamental level. Alberta Justice prosecuted this case despite the fact the evidence did not offer a reasonable likelihood of conviction. The statement went on to say, the prosecution should never have been continued.
Alberta Justice said this case spurred change, including increased scrutiny of cases involving charges against a police officer. Now, it's standard Crown practice to give a file like this to prosecutors from outside the jurisdiction where the offence occurred. Being falsely accused still weighs heavily on HUDAC.
For years, we've discussed sharing what he's gone through in a way that could never be possible in a two-minute news story. It hasn't been easy. We've worked on this episode for more than two years, and I've gone through hundreds of pages of court documents and disclosure to get the facts straight, which means he's also gone back over the details he sometimes wishes he could forget.
But he says this process has been therapeutic. Nancy, the reason why I'm able to do this is because people like yourself and other people, and my brother picked up on this. He says, John, he says, one thing I've always noticed about you, you have had the ability to be able to associate with good people.
And the other thing that has allowed me to be able to do that is my faith. My faith has got me through this. And that is not lost on me. John Hudak will always be scarred. But he wants people to know he's not broken. After this happened, I never expected that this was going to be sitting here, that I was still going to be dealing with this 20 years later.
But my goal is this, is that I want to be able to do everything that I can. I go in to talk to psychologists or counselors on this issue because I want to keep my head straight. My goal is to come out of this as a survivor, not a victim. And that's my goal.
Thank you for joining me and letting me share John's story with you. Crime Beat is written and produced by me, Nancy Hixt, with producer Dila Velasquez. Audio editing and sound design is by Rob Johnston. Special thanks to photographer-editor Danny Lantella for his work on this episode. And thanks to Chris Bassett, the acting VP of National and Network News for Global News.
I would love to have you tell a friend about this podcast, and you can help me share these important stories by rating and reviewing Crime Beat on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.
You can find me on Twitter at Nancy Hixt, on Facebook at Nancy Hixt Crime Beat, and I'll post some photos from this case, including the fake receipt, on my Instagram at nancy.hixt. That's N-A-N-C-Y dot H-I-X-T. Thanks again for listening. Please join me next time.