Brothers who raped teen ‘fell through cracks of life’: lawyer

CALGARY Two brothers who brutally kidnapped and raped a Calgary teen were doomed from birth, one of their lawyers said Thursday.

“These two men fell through the cracks of life,” defence counsel Alain Hepner told provincial court Judge Terry Semenuk.

“They didn’t stand a chance from the minute they were born,” Hepner said.

Both Hepner and fellow defence lawyer Mitch Stephensen detailed the many problems Cody Manyshots and Corey Manyshots have faced in life, from alcohol and drug abuse to fetal alcohol spectrum disorder which has left the brothers with severe cognitive deficits.

Both lawyers say those mental health issues, while not enough to have the brothers found not criminally responsible by reason of a mental disorder, should impact the sentences Semenuk hands down.

The brothers have pleaded guilty to charges of kidnapping, sexual assault causing bodily harm, robbery and uttering death threats after they snatched a 17-year-old girl off a residential street in Calgary on Nov. 14, 2014.

They grabbed the teen at a bus stop and took her to a nearby alley where they both sexually assaulted her.

They then forced her to walk 20 minutes to their home where they kept her for hours and repeatedly raped her.

Stephensen, who acts for Corey Manyshots, 28, is seeking a sentence of close to 6 1/2 years, but with credit for time already spent on remand would leave him another two years left to serve.

Such a sentence would allow Semenuk to also place his client on probation for three years, which would allow him to be supervised and monitored in the community after his release from prison.

Under the Criminal Code, probation cannot be imposed on sentences of more than two years.

Hepner, on the other hand, acknowledged Cody Manyshots, 24, would require a greater sentence than Stephensen suggested for his client.

The lawyer said a five-year term on top of the more than 3 1/2 years credit his client is owed would be a sufficient punishment.

But Crown prosecutor Jonathan Hak, who earlier proposed a 12year sentence for both brothers, said their mental health issues weren’t linked to their crimes.

“There is no causal connection between the FASD, the intellectual deficits and the psychological issues and the Aboriginal heritage and the offences that have been committed,” Hak said.

“We cannot say they committed these offences because of these attributes,” he said. “We cannot say people with these deficits will kidnap and rape young girls at random.”

The prosecutor noted both brothers were deemed moderate to high risks to commit future acts of sexual violence by psychiatrists.

“Both of these offenders have limited insight, limited impulse control,” Hak said. “One way to manage the risk is to keep them in for as long as possible.”

But he acknowledged Semenuk couldn’t just lock the brothers up and throw away the key because neither had a history of sexual violence.

“You can’t use incarceration as the only way to address this, but we can use substantial incarceration to recognize what they did in this case.”

Hak did express concern the brothers will offend once they return to the community.

“It’s entirely likely we will see them again.”

Before adjourning to January to consider his decision, Semenuk heard from the offenders’ mother, Angelina Manyshots.

“I would like to help my sons any way I can,” she told the judge.

“I really love my sons. I’ll do everything I can to help them.”