Witness ruled ‘unreliable’ because of compliment

An Ontario judge found an alleged victim’s testimony to be “unreliable” in part because the witness interrupted her testimony to tell the defence lawyer she was beautiful.

Dzenita Omerovic was on the witness stand when she addressed Toronto criminal defence lawyer Ines Gavran.

“May I just say something?” said Omerovic to Gavran, a 2013 Miss Canada. “OK,” said Gavran.

“You are beautiful.” In dismissing almost all charges, Justice Joseph De Filippis said Omerovic’s testimony could not be trusted.

“The record before me shows the complainant to be obsessive, occasionally vindictive and insecure,” wrote De Filippis in the Aug. 23 decision. With regards to Omerovic being insecure, the judge noted “her observations about defence counsel’s physical appearance are instructive.”

He acquitted Guesly Gemelus of bruising Omerovic’s arm, confining her in a motel room and stealing her cellphone. However, he found him guilty on two counts of breaching bail conditions.

Alice Woolley, a University of Calgary law professor, called the decision “empirically pretty suspect” for relying on a single exchange to diagnose a witness’s character.

“You generally do not draw legal conclusion based on the kind of person someone is, you draw it based on the evidence,” she said.