Serial rapist sentenced to 14 years
Time in prison will be cut in half for hardships while in custody
A serial rapist received a 14-year-prison sentence on Wednesday, but only has half that time left to serve because of credit for mistreatment by police and poor conditions in the Edmonton Remand Centre.
Norman Washington Walters, 25, an American illegally in Canada, was convicted in October on three counts of sexual assault with a weapon, two counts of robbery and one charge of unlawful confinement.
Walters admitted contacting three escorts on Craigslist, an Internet classified ad site, then arranging isolated meeting places in Mill Woods and negotiating a price through cellphone texts in July and August of 2009.
Walters claimed he had sex with only two of the women and it was consensual. He left the third before any sexual act, he said, because she arrived drunk.
The women testified that Walters pulled a knife, forced them to have sex, then fled. Two women testified he stole their purses. Two testified to cuts and bruises suffered when they tried to fight back or grab the knife from Walters.
In the end, Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Robert Graesser did not believe Walters.
“These were carefully planned offences,” Graesser said as he read his sentencing decision. “The victims were vulnerable to harm, being sextrade workers. The courts are now recognizing this group’s vulnerability to abuse, exploitation and victimization.”
The justice called the crimes “violent, brutal, unprovoked assaults,” and concluded that “Mr. Walters is a dangerous man.”
Graesser also noted that Walters has given no indication of remorse.
Two of the victims read victim impact statements and stated that, besides the physical harm they endured, they suffered from continued psychological trauma.
Walters received four months off his sentence because Graesser previously concluded police had used unnecessary force in his arrest by kicking him.
“Gratuitous force has no place in policing,” the justice said.
Graesser took another nine months from Walters’s sentence because he was triple-bunked in protective custody in the Edmonton Remand Centre. In protective custody, inmates are confined to their cells for 23 hours a day. Graesser called Walters’s housing “cruel and unusual” and said it amounted to “exceptionally hard time.”
Graesser noted that convicted criminals get better treatment in custody than those awaiting trial in the remand centre.
Another three months was deducted from the sentence because Walters was not provided with a supply of clean underwear while remanded.
Walters has been in the Edmonton Remand Centre since his arrest in August 2009. For each day in custody, Graesser awarded him 2-1/4 days of credit.
The reduction in sentence leaves him with only half his 14-year sentence left to serve.
Walters had also testified about being infected with lice while in remand, multiple assaults from other inmates and racist, poor treatment from remand guards. One of those assaults from a fellow inmate left him with a permanent eye injury.
Also, Walters was not advised when he was arrested of his consular rights as a foreign citizen.
Graesser found that those claims could not be proven or did not warrant a reduction in sentence.
Walters will be deported to the United States when his sentence is served. “He has undoubtedly seriously abused Canada’s hospitality,” Graesser said.