BREAKING: Jacob Hoggard found guilty of sex assault against one complainant
Hoggard, 37, has also been found not guilty of sexual interference, a charge that relates to the sexual touching of someone under 16, in an incident involving the same fan when she was 15.Prosecutors alleged Hoggard groped the teen after a Hedley show in Toronto in April 2016, then violently raped her in a Toronto-area hotel room later that year after she turned 16. They alleged he then violently raped the Ottawa woman in a Toronto hotel in November 2016.
Hoggard, meanwhile, testified during trial that he had consensual, “passionate” sex with the complainants, and that he didn't touch the teen sexually until after she turned 16. Defence lawyers alleged the women lied about being raped after Hoggard rejected them because they were embarrassed and upset that he had used them for sex.
Over the course of the roughly month-long trial, jurors heard dramatically different portrayals of Hoggard, a musician whose band, Hedley, rose to fame after he came in third on the reality show Canadian Idol in 2004.