Curtis Sagmoen leaving the Vernon courthouse, June 19, 2020.

(BEN BULMER / iNFOnews.ca)

The first day of the trial of a North Okanagan man, charged with assaulting a police officer, got off to a slow start today with the court proceedings wrapping up by noon.

At the Vernon courthouse today, March 1, North Okanagan resident Curtis Sagmoen spoke only to confirm his not guilty plea for the alleged assault that took place while police were searching his family's Salmon River Road property in October 2020.

Little is known about the details of the search that took place four months after Sagmoen avoided jail having been convicted of driving an ATV into a sex worker he'd called to the large rural property.

The alleged assault on the police officer came shortly after police issued a public warning that sex workers should avoid the area around Sagmoen's property.

Sagmoen was under probation which forbids him from having any contact with sex workers.

READ MORE: Curtis Sagmoen goes on trial in Vernon accused of assaulting police officer

Sagmoen's latest legal proceedings started Feb. 22, with the defence arguing against the validity of the search warrant, prior to the trial beginning.

Today, Sagmoen's lawyer Lisa Helps argued the trial should be adjourned as she had hundreds of pages of disclosure that she needed to review.

"We are not talking about ground shattering information," Crown counsel Simone McCallum said in her reply.

Following a morning of legal arguments, and without the trial beginning, the case was adjourned until tomorrow morning.

Sagmoen has been the subject of public scrutiny since the body of 18-year-old Traci Genereaux was discovered on his family's Salmon River Road property in 2017.

However, no one has been charged in connection with the discovery of Genereaux's body, and police have not said how she died.

Sagmoen does have several convictions for violence against sex workers.

In December 2019, he was convicted of ambushing a sex worker and pointing a gun at her at the Salmon River Road property.

Following the conviction, he was released from custody having already served more than two years in jail.

In the summer of 2020, he was convicted of driving an ATV into another sex worker but avoided more time in jail having spent so much time behind bars prior to the December 2019 conviction.

He also received an absolute discharge for using a homemade spike belt to flatten the tires of a woman driving on Salmon River Road in 2017.

In 2018, he was convicted for an assault that had taken place five years earlier in Maple Ridge.

Find past stories on Curtis Sagmoen here.

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