Violent robbery at Niagara Falls hotel results in jail term

A Niagara couple, whose lawyers said descended into “a bizarro world” of drugs, alcohol and criminal associates, will spend the next nine months behind bars after they violently attacked a pair of escorts after arranging for a sexual liaison at a Niagara Falls hotel.

The Crown had advocated for a two-year custodial sentence on the robbery charge against Trevon Demos, 23, and Mary McQuoid, 21, saying the sentence must serve to denounce and deter similar conduct.

Assistant Crown attorney Kevin Kim said the offence was planned and deliberate, and one victim was left with a permanent scar on her face while the other woman sustained internal damage to her nose that will require plastic surgery in the future.

Defence lawyers Mark Evans and Jeffrey Root argued a more appropriate sentence would be 90 days in jail, to be served intermittently.

Neither offender had a criminal record prior to the incident and both have promising futures.

The lawyers said the incident occurred during a period in which both individuals descended into “a bizarro world” of drugs, alcohol and criminal associates.

In Ontario Court of Justice in St. Catharines on Tuesday, Judge Joseph De Filippis said the sentence must be proportionate to the gravity of the offence.

“The injuries, although not life-threatening, are permanent reminders of the experience,” he said. “A 90-day intermittent sentence would not be a measured response to this offence. It would send the wrong message to the public.”

McQuoid said her relationship with Demos began well but she quickly grew fearful, confused and manipulated by the St. Catharines man.

She said she participated in the

robbery because she feared Demos would leave her if she didn’t go along with it.

“I’m trying to move forward,” she told the judge. “Now, I’m careful about my environment and friends. I was so lost, in a toxic relationship.”

Devos, meanwhile, said his former girlfriend lived a different lifestyle than he was accustomed to and that they spent time with “negative associates.”

“I wish I could change the past … I was with people and at places I shouldn’t have been,” he told the judge.

On March 30, 2018, McQuoid contacted two women on a classifieds website and arranged for a sexual encounter for a $400 fee.

The Niagara Falls woman told the escorts she wanted to give her then-boyfriend a “birthday present.”

Text messages between the defendants revealed they planned to rob the women. The text exchange included Demos telling McQuoid “once you get the one in the bathroom, I’ll knock the one and come in the bathroom and knock the other one. Then we grab the purses and bag and cut.”

During a sex act at a hotel, court was told, Demos, without warning, began to attack one of the women. Almost simultaneously, McQuoid launched an attack on the second woman.

As both women lay on the floor, naked and bleeding, the defendants grabbed their purses. One victim managed to wrestle her purse away and ran out of the room screaming for help.