Northwoods Inn owner charged with sex assault and extortion

The owner of the Northwoods Inn and Suites in Saskatoon faces sexual assault and extortion charges after a months-long investigation by the Saskatoon police vice unit.

According to police, an investigation started in February after allegations were made against John Pontes, 74.

“After numerous interviews and an in-depth investigation,” Pontes was charged with three counts of sexual assault, two counts of extortion and one count each of obtaining sexual service for consideration and uttering death threats, police said in a news release.

He was arrested Monday at the Northwoods Inn and appeared briefly Tuesday in Saskatoon provincial court. He is scheduled to appear again today.

Pontes is accused of extorting tenants of the motel for sexual favours, which police allege took place at the motel.

In 2014, the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission awarded almost $45,000 to an ex-employee of the Northwoods Inn who was sexually harassed by Pontes.

“It clearly, clearly says that an egregious violation of human rights will not be tolerated in the workplace, or anywhere else,” Chief Commissioner David Arnot said in 2014.

“The damages are significant. This is the highest award ever, the maximum for injury to dignity ever given in the province under the (Saskatchewan) Human Rights Code.”

Queen’s Bench Justice Ysanne Wilkinson found Pontes continually harassed a female front-desk clerk at the Northwoods Inn from when he hired her in April 2009 to the day she relapsed into drug use three months later. The woman had started working for Pontes after spending more than two years devoted to recovery from her drug addiction; shortly after her relapse, she entered treatment again.

Wilkinson said she found the complainant highly credible. She ordered Pontes to pay $10,000 in compensation for wilful and reckless conduct, the maximum allowed under the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code, as well as $31,900 for the woman’s loss of earnings and $3,000 in costs.

Between 2006 and 2011, the human rights commission had 11 files opened on Pontes, Arnot said. In 2010, Queen’s Bench judges upheld two separate rulings that ordered Pontes to pay $3,000 to a female employee for sexual discrimination and $7,000 to a man for racial discrimination.

Pontes did not participate in the 2014 hearing. His lawyer had withdrawn weeks earlier due to unpaid legal fees. When Pontes showed up the day of the hearing to ask for an adjournment, Wilkinson adjourned for one day, at which point she denied a further adjournment.

In her ruling, Wilkinson noted that the May 2014 date was selected at Pontes’s request. After she outlined court procedures to Pontes, he responded with a “lengthy diatribe” and left the courtroom, “never to return,” the ruling noted.