“Host father” to Brock student convicted of voyeursim

A 64-year-old man who opened his home to foreign students from Brock University has been convicted of voyeurism after he placed a cellphonein a tissue box to record a young Japanese student in the shower.

“He did something that was pathetic,” Judge Joseph Nadel said Friday in Ontario Court of Justice in St. Catharines before imposing a $2,000 fine against Johnny Scholman.

“Why he sunk to the depths of this pathetic depravity... I find it hard to fathom.”

Court was told a 20-year-old woman from Japan was staying at the defendant’s home while she was studying at Brock. One day she reached for a Kleenex after getting out of the shower and noticed a pin hole in the tissue box.

Inside the box was an iPhone set to record. The woman deleted the video, left the home and contacted police.

The Crown had asked the judge to impose a jail sentence of 30 to 45 days, saying the St. Catharines man was in a position of trust as a ‘host father’ to the university student.

Prosecutor Henry Limheng called Scholman’s behaviour a “gross invasion of privacy.”

The fact the crime was premeditated and not a spur of the moment decision, he added, was also an aggravating factor that called for a jail term.

“This is an act that requires a bit of planning.”

Defence counsel Paul Burton said the Crown may have had difficulty proving its case if the defendant had not pleaded guilty because the woman had erased the video.

The plea, he added, spared the complainant from having to testify in court. She has since returned to Japan. Based on the defendant’s age and serious health issues, combined with the fact he had no prior criminal record, Nadel agreed a jail term was not warranted and imposed a fine.

“If he had wanted to see videos of naked women, all he had to do was go online,” the judge said. “It’s hard to follow his though process, that this was a reasonable risk for him to take.”