Judge to decide fate of serial rapist on Nov. 9
Sofyan Boalag may be declared a dangerous offender, Crown seeking 17-year sentence for his crimes
The Crown has not met the threshold of evidence required to have serial rapist Sofyan Boalag declared a dangerous offender, his lawyer Jeff Brace argued Friday in provincial court.
Brace said he doesn’t want to minimize the impact that the incidents Boalag was convicted of have had on the three female victims in the case, but noted the crimes were committed five years ago during a three-month period.
Brace said there is nothing else before the court of any criminal record for Boalag outside of those convictions.
He said that instead of declaring Boalag a dangerous offender, the court should impose a sentence of 10 years total for the crimes.
That’s a far cry from what Crown prosecutor Trisha Mccarthy argued for earlier this week. She said that Boalag does meet “any and all” criteria to be deemed a dangerous offender, and if the court did not agree, a sentence of 17 years should be imposed.
Boalag, 37, a native of Algeria, raped two women and a 15-year-old girl as they walked home from the downtown St. John’s area over the summer and fall of 2012. He also robbed one of the women and the teenager, and choked the other woman until she was rendered unconscious. Boalag was armed with a stick in the first case and a knife in the other two.
The Crown applied to provincial court to have Boalag deemed a dangerous offender. If declared so, he would be kept behind bars for an indefinite period of time.
Judge Pamela Goulding will give a written decision in the case on Nov. 9.
Brace said Friday that Boalag has been in custody on remand for 1,757 days. He suggested that Goulding consider Boalag for 1.5 times credit for time already served that can be applied against a sentence. That, he calculated, would leave Boalag with just less than three years to serve if the sentence imposed was 10 years.
Forensic psychiatrist Dr. Jasbir Gill had conducted a lengthy evaluation of Boalag at the Waterford Hospital and both presented a detailed report and testified in the Boalag case. Gill said Boalag was likely to reoffend unless he received more jail time, sex offender treatment and supervision in the community.
Brace argued that while Gill suggested Boalag was at a high risk to reoffend, the scores on tests done on Boalag during the evaluation placed him at lowto-medium risk to reoffend.
Earlier this week, the three victims’ impact statements were presented to the court. Two of the victims addressed Boalag directly for the first time. The third woman — who was just 15 and a virgin when she was raped by Boalag — chose to give her written statement to Crown prosecutor Trisha Mccarthy to read to the court.
The women described how traumatic the incidents have been for them. They spoke of such things as fearing for their health, of walking at night and of men they don’t know.