Local man accused of Manitoba child sex assaults
Reports last month of child sex assaults that took place over the past eight years in rural Manitoba have led to an arrest in Calgary.
On Feb. 27, Mounties arrested 57-year-old Ivan Valintine Cesnik and charged him in connection with a string of sexual assaults committed on girls as young as seven.
A little over a month before the arrest, Mounties in the community of Oakbank, Man. — located about 20 kilometres east of Winnipeg — received reports regarding sexual assaults against four young girls alleged to have taken place between 2010 and 2015.
The assaults against the victims, aged seven and eight years old at the time, were believed to have taken place at the suspect’s residence near Brokenhead, Man., located just east of Selkirk, and at a second rural residence in the nearby municipality of Springfield.
In the time immediately following the most recent assault, the suspect moved to Calgary and, according to police, maintained no contact with his victims.
Cesnik has been taken to Winnipeg to face trial for the charges, which include three counts each of sexual assault, uttering threats and sexual interference, as well as two counts of administering a noxious substance.
Investigators believe there may be more victims in either Manitoba or Alberta, as well as in the Kelowna, B.C., area.