Prison time for sex assaults while posing as Uber driver
Judge cites ‘predatory behaviour’ by man who also raided victims’ bank accounts
Sami Khreis approached his first victim as the young woman walked alone from a ByWard Market bar in the early hours of Oct. 18, 2017.
“I’m a nice guy, let me help you,” he told her as they walked to a nearby parking garage, where she met her friends and retrieved her car keys and bank card.
Her next memory is awakening in the man’s bed, still clothed, with Khreis telling her to “shut up b----” as he raped her.
He kept her bank card after she fled and emptied $400 from her account, then tried to cash a fraudulent cheque at various downtown bank machines, according to facts read into the court record this week.
For what Justice Robert Wadden called “abhorrent crimes,” Khreis, 38, pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual assault and four counts of fraud after preying on young women while posing as an Uber driver.
“The fact you would prey on young women (in this manner) shows planning, premeditation and predatory behaviour on your part,” Wadden told Khreis as he handed down a four-year sentence.
His first victim picked his picture out of a photo lineup — Khreis has a prior criminal record, court noted, including convictions for theft, drug possession and breaching bail conditions in 2014 — and she told police she was “99 per cent sure” the man was her assailant.
The names of the victims are protected by a publication ban standard to sexual assault cases.
Khreis struck a second time on Nov. 22, 2017, when he propositioned two young women in the Rideau Street McDonald’s posing as an Uber driver and offering a ride.
He dropped off one woman, and when he had the other alone, he shoved his hand under her shirt and told her to sit on his lap as he unbuckled his belt and exposed himself. She was saying no and resisting as he forced her hand onto his genitals and attempted to mount her. He kissed her before she managed to unlock the car door and escape.
Her bank card was missing, and as she later discovered, so was $200 in fraudulent withdrawals from her account.
Police tracked down the car from surveillance footage — taken at both the McDonald’s and an Ultramar station where they had stopped for gas — but Khreis “attempted to evade police (and) drove at a high rate of speed in a commercial area,” said Crown attorney Meaghan Cunningham.
Khreis initially faced additional charges for fleeing police, but the charge was withdrawn with his guilty plea, which as Wadden noted, avoided the need for a trial. His initial charge of sexual assault causing bodily harm was likewise reduced to sexual assault.
Khreis was a no-show at several scheduled court appearances earlier in October before entering Tuesday’s plea with defence lawyer Robert Carew.
Khreis remained with his eyes downcast in the prisoner’s box as the Crown detailed his next crime, on Dec. 1, when he again offered a ride to two intoxicated young women outside a pub, but they grew suspicious when he pulled into a gas station and asked them to pay for the fuel.
They got out and called a taxi, but again a bank card went missing and was used to make withdrawals of $800, then $980 at the Casino du Lac-Leamy, then another $200 from an Elgin Street ATM.
Uber, as the Crown noted, does not have its clients pay with cash or debit cards and does not make its clients pay for gas.
Khreis made another attempt on Dec. 10, but the two young women again grew suspicious and demanded he drop them off at a Carp Road Tim Hortons — but not before they captured his image on Snapchat.
Again a debit card went missing. The young woman cancelled the card the next morning, but four withdrawals totalling $500 had already been made.
A detective recognized the Snapchat photo of Khreis.
Police had noted that other victims came forward following his arrest on Jan. 12.
Wadden said Khreis would have faced “much more serious time” had he been found guilty following a full trial.
“I apologize for everything I’ve done. I was lost and confused, hanging out with the wrong people. I disappointed everyone in my family,” Khreis said as he stood to face his family members who showed up in support.
Khreis was given credit for just over one year for time served in pretrial custody, and will spend a further 1,032 days in jail.
I apologize for everything I’ve done. I was lost and confused, hanging out with the wrong people.