Five men in pimping case to go on trial
One faces charge of attempted murder
A jury trial is set to begin Monday for five Montreal men accused of controlling a young woman’s life for more than five months while forcing her to work as a prostitute.
Last week, 14 jurors, including two alternates, were chosen to hear the trial at the Montreal courthouse. During an unusual selection process, potential jurors were told not to state their names or identify their employers.
Before jury selection began, all potential jurors were advised they will be hearing testimony in French and English.
This prompted a few to ask to be excluded because they feared they aren’t proficient enough in their second language to determine whether five men are guilty of a serious crime.
But Superior Court Justice Marc David said that a “working knowledge” of their second language would suffice.
Of the five accused, the man facing the most serious charges is Evgueni Mataev, a 39-year-old Notre-Dame-deGrâce resident. Along with being accused of exercising control over the woman, Mataev is also charged with sexually assaulting both her and another woman, as well as attempting to murder a third person, who was stabbed on Jan. 30, 2011.
A publication ban has been placed on the identities of the alleged victims. The woman at the centre of the trial — one charge involving her applies to all five accused — was not a Canadian citizen and was in her early 20s when she was allegedly forced to work as a prostitute between September 2010 and March 2011.
Three of the other men on trial — Harold Benoit, 35, Danial Youssefi, 33, and Benjamin Oswald Hernandez, 33 — are also charged with exercising control over the woman for months. The charge carries a maximum prison sentence of 14 years.
Youssefi and Hernandez are also charged with sexual assault and living off the avails of prostitution. Trials involving pimp-related charges are not often brought before a jury at the Montreal courthouse.
The fifth man, Vasilios Mastoropoulos, 35, is charged with holding the young woman against her will for more than two months and with using extortion to get her to commit robberies.
All five men were arrested in 2011 following an investigation by the Montreal police.