Curtis Sagmoen leaves the Vernon court house Sept. 9, 2019.

(BEN BULMER / iNFOnews.ca)

A North Okanagan man with a history of assaulting sex workers is due to go on trial today having allegedly assaulted a police officer.

At the Vernon courthouse today, Feb. 22, Curtis Sagmoen is standing trial charged with a single count of assaulting an RCMP officer in October 2020.

Details surrounding the charge are unknown, and all details from today's court appearance are covered under a publication ban.

Today and the next two days of the trial consists of a voir dire, a sort of trial within a trial, that assesses the validity of evidence. Following the voir dire, the trial is scheduled to resume for four days beginning March 1.

READ MORE: 'I feel like we're being terrorized:' Curtis Sagmoen's neighbour says

Details surrounding how Sagmoen allegedly assaulted a police officer are unknown. However, in October 2020, neighbours at Sagmoen's family's Salmon River Road property reported a heavy police presence. One week earlier, the Vernon RCMP had warned sex trade workers to avoid the Salmon River Road area.

At the time, a neighbour of Sagmoen's told iNFOnews.ca they'd seen several people they assumed to be sex workers, near the property.

Sagmoen was under a strict probation condition at the time that limited who he could call and barred him from using the internet.

The probation came after Sagmoen was found guilty of two separate attacks on sex workers.

In June 2020, he was sentenced to time already served for driving an ATV into a sex trade worker he'd called to his parents' large rural property on Salmon River Road. Six months early he'd been found guilty for ambushing and pointing a gun at a sex worker on the same property.

He received a two-year sentence but was released that day having been in custody for over two years.

In December 2018, Sagmoen pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of mischief causing damage to property, after he used a homemade spike belt to stop a woman in her car on Salmon River Road. He was given an absolute discharge for this crime.

He was also charged with assault following an unknown incident in May 2017, but the charge was stayed by Crown prosecutors in 2019.

In the fall of 2017, the remains of the body of 18-year-old of Traci Genereaux were found at Sagmoen's parents' property. No one has been charged in connection with the discovery of Genereaux's body, and police have not said how she died.

Find past stories on Curtis Sagmoen here.

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