Uneven coverage conceals parties’ true roles
Leslie Nyznik, Sameer Kara and Joshua Cabero: Taken together, the names have a nice multicultural ring to them, as befits a police force in a country committed to the belief that diversity is our strength.
Cultural diversity, however, was not the strength behind the Aug. 9 acquittal of these Toronto police officers, who had been charged with sexually assaulting a junior colleague on the night of Jan. 16, 2015. Hotel security video cameras were their strength. Without video footage that countered key pieces of testimony by the complainant, known as AB, it is highly likely thatNyznik,Ka ra and Cabero would be facing prison terms of five to 10 years.
The fateful off- duty evening began with a “Rookie Buy Night” celebration in the downtown hotel where the officers had taken a room for the night, moved on to various bars and a strip club, and ended with AB and the three men in their room, where various sexual acts took place. AB claimed she was sexually assaulted by all three, and Nyznik, the only officer to take the stand, insisted sex with all was consensual.
AB, it was revealed at trial, had attached herself to the group without invitation to any activity throughout the evening or to the room afterward.
Much of her testimony crumbled to dust under the glare of countervailing evidence.
If you have only read media accounts of the trial, you have a very partial view of the flimsiness of the complainant’s case. The devil is in the details, so it’s best to read the full judgment.
But you can get the drift of just how lopsided the case was from watching a short video by Diana Davison, who blogs for the Lighthouse Project on Patreon, piquantly titled, “Judges need to read more porn.” Brainy, spirited and a relentless sleuth, Davison is a full- time advocate for the falsely accused. Although not a lawyer by accreditation, through dogged research and experience in the court system, she has become one in spirit.
In her video on this case, she poses the question that prompted my interest in writing about it: “Why was ( Sameer Kara) on trial?” From the way their images appear in the media, one has the i mpression Nyznik, Cabero and Kara were three amigos throughout t he entire f ateful evening. All three did end up with AB in the men’s hotel room late at night, but Kara’s truncated evening trajectory was quite different from that of the other two. Following an excursion from the hotel dinner to a vodka bar, he had become drunk enough to start vomiting ( security video shows him close to passing out waiting for the hotel elevator), had returned to the hotel room, and had no part in the next three hours’ activity.
He was still near- comatose, and innocent of any legally reprehensible behaviour, when the other two men and AB arrived back at the room late that night. According to the judgment, AB “then went to the bed closest to the washroom and tried to wake up the sleeping Mr. Kara.
She said she was calling his name and recalls at one point being ‘ kind of on all fours on the bed’ while trying to wake him. None of these attempts were successful in rousing Mr. Kara.” According to Nyznik’s testimony, AB reached out, undid ( Kara’s) pants, took out his penis, and “proceeded to give ( him) oral sex.” The j udge believed Nyznik: “There were very few details Mr. Nyznik did not recall, and for the most part, his evidence was completely consistent with objective evidence.”
Davison notes what neither the judge or any commentator, i ncluding t he other two cops, saw fit to mention. AB appears to have committed a criminal act of sexual assault on the clearly incapacitated Kara.
Moreover, the litany of lies and complete fabrications that streamed from AB’s mouth around the entire night’s events are truly mind-boggling.
And yet, she has not been charged with either sex assault or perjury.
Bottom line: The last two years have been hellish for the cops, with their names and images constantly in the news, and public opinion, given the superficial optics of the complainant’s lurid story and the default tendency to “believe the victim,” stacked against them. Though legally exonerated, they have no idea if they will retain their professional status, if or where they will be transferred, and perhaps most important, whether their private lives can ever thrive in any normal way again.
AB? Having ruined three lives, and protected from public attention by anonymity, she is free to move on without consequence. And a journalist calls the acquitted cops “scumbags.”