SUBSCRIBE & WIN! Sign up for the Daily CHAT News Today Newsletter for a chance to win a $75 South Country Co-op gift card!

Chronic offender

Chronic southeastern Alberta offender pleads guilty to 2019 charges

Jan 9, 2020 | 4:58 PM

Medicine Hat, AB – A 40-year-old man with a long and checkered criminal past in southeastern Alberta has entered guilty pleas to the latest in a string of criminal charges over the past two decades.

Kayl Edward Libke was last taken into custody by the city’s TACT team in May 2019 following a standoff at the Ace Crown Motel. Charges relating to that incident were withdrawn in the summer due to lack of witness cooperation.

On Thursday, Libke entered guilty pleas to charges of assaulting a peace officer, threats to cause death, unlawfully in dwelling house and breach of conditions in connection to allegations in Medicine Hat. Details of those charges were not relayed in court but they stem from allegations leveled between July and November 2019.

Sentencing on the latest charges have been adjourned to Calgary where Libke is facing other outstanding allegations.

Libke was sentenced to nearly three years in jail – serving a little more than 18 months with pre-trial custody credit – for aggravated assault with a baseball bat in a 2006 incident.

The man assaulted in that incident died months later.

Libke was again arrested in 2011 following a high-speed chase in Brooks in a stolen vehicle, according to the Calgary Herald. It was noted during his June 2012 sentencing on those charges he had amassed 81 convictions in the previous 17 years.

The man was also charged by Drumheller RCMP in 2018 for an attempted break and enter outside of that municipality utilizing a vehicle stolen from Bassano.