Cop tells trial that sex was consensual
Officer concedes he did perform background check on ‘attractive’ woman
A Toronto police officer took the stand Tuesday to deny sexually assaulting a woman in her apartment 10 years ago, saying their sexual interaction “was consensual from the beginning right to the end.”
But Const. Vincenzo Bonazza, 47, admitted that when the young woman first approached his squad car in September 2008, he found her attractive and asked for her phone number, despite the fact that he was married.
“Listen, I was working and I used my position as a police officer to get a phone number from an attractive woman,” Bonazza said.
Days after their initial meeting, he looked up the woman’s file regarding an ongoing criminal harassment complaint she had against her exboyfriend, though he was not involved in the case. He conceded Tuesday during cross-examination that this was a way of conducting a “background check” on her prior to spending time with her.
“We work in a city where there’s a lot of people who are mentally unstable,” the officer said, adding that there are many people who are dangerous and he didn’t want to associate with her if that was the case.
Bonazza had pleaded not guilty to sexual assault in a case being heard by Justice Anne London-Weinstein.
The complainant in the case — whose name is covered by a publication ban — alleges Bonazza sexually assaulted her inside her apartment in 2008, when she was working as an actor. The woman now works as a police officer in another jurisdiction and came forward with the allegations against Bonazza in 2015, after investigating another alleged sexual assault.
“It’s taken me a long time to own any of this,” she told the court Tuesday, referring to admitting to herself that she had been sexually assaulted.
She told the court Monday that she engaged in non-consensual sexual intercourse, and then oral sex, out of fear for her safety, thinking “he is trained to fight people if he needs to.” She testified that she adamantly told him no when he began unbuttoning her pants, but that he didn’t stop.
Court has heard that she first met Bonazza when she approached the marked Toronto police vehicle he was driving in the context of getting help with her ex-boyfriend.
On the stand Tuesday, Bonazza denied much of the woman’s account, admitting that they had sexual intercourse but stating unequivocally that it was consensual. He denied the woman’s account that there was oral sex following intercourse.