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 Ivana Levkovic leaves a Toronto courthouse, Monday, July 12, 2010. Levkovic pleaded not guilty to charges that she caused a newborn baby's death. (Alex Urosevic/QMI Agency) |
TORONTO — The fate of a former stripper accused of allowing her newborn to die in a toilet and then hiding the baby’s corpse in a freezer for several years may rest in the hands of “a ghost.”
The entire case against Ivana Levkovic, 28, who was acquitted in 2006 of similar allegations involving another infant, is expected to come down to the whether or not her former pimp is allowed to tell his grizzly version of events from the grave.
“We’re up against a ghost, an ambiguous ghost,” defence attorney Michael Moon said in court Monday during a pre-trial hearing at 361 University Ave.
The lone witness against Levkovic is Mark Hinds, a man who once lived with the exotic dancer and came forward with allegations to Toronto Police in 2005.
Hinds, an alleged drug addict, died a year later of complications from HIV. But his confession, which the then 28-year-old provided after being granted immunity, was recorded..
In that videotaped interview, which was played in court yesterday, Hinds alleged he was sleeping one day in either 2002 or 2003 when he was awakened by the accused as she screamed for his help.
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Hinds claimed he ran to the bathroom and saw Levkovic sitting on the toilet and the baby floating in the bowl beneath her. She allegedly yelled for him to get something to cut the umbilical cord, so he brought her scissors and she severed the tie herself.
“I was shocked,” Hinds said. “I was shocked on how she was. Maybe we could have had a family or something.”
Hinds, who claimed he had no idea Levkovic was pregnant until that gruesome moment, suggested at one point that the baby was born dead. Then he later claimed the newborn was crying for a bit before it “suffocated” in the toilet water.
The tot and the placenta were then placed in a black garbage bag and stuffed in the freezer above the fridge, Hinds alleged.
He claimed the dead baby remained their dark secret for several years. But while clearing out his apartment after being evicted in 2005, Hinds came across the frozen infant.
He allegedly asked a friend, Juan Cerdas, to slip on a pair of surgical gloves and dispose of the garbage bag in the Humber River.
Crown attorney Shane Hobson, argued that Hinds came forward to police soon after because he was feeling guilty and remorseful.
But the defence doesn’t even acknowledge there ever was a birth, Moon said, pointing out no body was ever found so there is no forensic evidence.
chris.doucette@sunmedia.ca