Ex-senator’s wife facing more charges

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This article was published 22/05/2015 (3258 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — The former senator’s wife who made international headlines following an air-rage incident nearly three years ago is again in trouble with the law.

Maygan Sensenberger, 26, was represented in an Ottawa court by her lawyer Thursday to face charges of assault, uttering threats and mischief related to an incident on Feb. 22 at the home she shares with her husband, former Manitoba Liberal senator Rod Zimmer, 72.

The couple were the butt of jokes in August 2012, mainly because of the 46-year age difference between them, after Sensenberger was arrested after an incident on an Air Canada flight from Ottawa to Saskatoon.

Zimmer, who has battled esophageal cancer for a decade, resigned from the Senate in August 2013 citing health issues. He spent many of the last months of his tenure in and out of hospital with pneumonia.

Fast-forward to August 2014, and Sensenberger was arrested and charged with two counts of assault with a weapon and mischief after an incident at the medical clinic.

She has been accused of attacking two people at an Ottawa medical clinic with a lit cigarette and a hand-held fan, according to media reports.

When she failed to appear in court to face those charges, a warrant was issued for her arrest and another charge of failing to appear was added. She was not in contact with police again, however, until Feb. 22, when paramedics were called to the home in Ottawa’s tony Rockcliffe Park neighbourhood, where Zimmer and Sensenberger have lived since they were married in 2011. She is accused of assaulting and threatening three city police officers while holding kitchen knives,

As a result of that incident, Sensenberger has been charged with possessing a weapon to commit an offence and uttering threats as well as two counts of assaulting a police officer.

She was released on a $5,000 bail. Her next court appearance is in mid-June. She has yet to enter a plea.

Ottawa police would say nothing about the case Friday because it is still before the courts.

In total, Sensenberger faces nine criminal charges related to the two incidents.

Police have been busy with Zimmer and Sensenberger recently after a high-profile theft of more than two dozen guns from Zimmer’s Ottawa home May 13. The Ottawa police guns and gangs unit is investigating that case and four people have been arrested.

Zimmer was not at home during the theft, but one of the people arrested worked for Zimmer as a chauffeur until just recently and police believe the thefts were an inside job.

After the airplane incident, Sensenberger pleaded guilty to causing a disturbance on a plane and was given a one-year suspended sentence and one-year probation, with one of the conditions she not drink alcohol.

She claimed to have just been trying to get help for her husband when he got sick on the plane but witnesses described her as irate and belligerent.

A longtime Liberal fundraiser, Zimmer worked for Canwest Corp., Manitoba Lotteries and the Pan Am Games in various communications and marketing positions before he was appointed to the Senate. He was especially good at getting big donations from major corporations for the Liberals before the rules changed.

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca