Pizza chef arrested on voyeurism charges
Gatineau man accused of watching at least half a dozen women since November
A ByWard Market line chef is the man police allege watched women in their Sandy Hill bedrooms over a span of nearly four months
Sam Gendreau, 31, was arrested Friday morning after the latest voyeurism incident.
Patrol officers responded to the area after a report of a man looking into a Chapel Street apartment window around 1:21 a.m. Police found a man who matched the description of the suspect. Gendreau is alleged to have run away from officers but was arrested on Sweetland Avenue.
Police believe he watched at least half a dozen women. Though police have previously said the incidents, which they believe are connected, date back to October 2019, the charges against Gendreau are for seven alleged incidents between November and this month.
The circumstances of each alleged incident of voyeurism are the same, according to the charges, with Gendreau allegedly watching through the bedroom window while a woman was nude.
Central criminal detectives have charged him with seven counts of voyeurism and seven counts of trespassing or prowling at night. He is also charged with one count of resisting arrest. Their investigation continues.
On Nov. 14, 2019, police allege, Gendreau watched someone at a two-storey home on Goulburn Avenue. They say that the next week he was just one block over, looking into a semi-detached home on Blackburn Avenue.
Many of the homes in Sandy Hill have been converted to multi-unit dwellings and are rented by university students.
On Dec. 5, police allege, he watched a woman at a four-storey Nelson Street apartment building that has fully furnished suites and caters to student tenants living in the area.
The next day, police appealed to the public and asked for any information about a man wearing a black hoodie seen peering into women’s windows in Sandy Hill between 11 p.m. and 4 a.m. On Dec. 12, police released surveillance images of the suspect.
Police continued to seek tips and renewed their call for information after two back-to-back incidents last month — on Feb. 4 when, police allege, Gendreau returned to the Nelson Street address and the next day when he allegedly watched someone at a two-storey walk-up on Russell Avenue with a basement window facing the street.
Despite the public attention and ongoing police investigation, the acts of voyeurism continued.
Police allege that Gendreau watched a nude woman on Feb. 12 on Chapel Street and then again on the same street on March 6, when he was arrested.
Gendreau has no criminal record in either Ontario or Quebec, where he lives in Gatineau.
On Monday, he was released from custody on consent from the Crown, with each of his sureties putting up $1,000.
Gendreau worked at the Grand Pizzeria in the ByWard Market, according to his LinkedIn profile. The restaurant and its management did not immediately respond to questions about the status of his employment or whether allegations had ever been made against him at work.
Gendreau has a background in muay thai and jiu-jitsu, according to his Facebook profile, which was deactivated for a short time after his arrest but reactivated by Wednesday afternoon. In 2010, he received an award for bravery after helping to rescue two women from a burning vehicle.
Erin Leigh, the executive director of the Ottawa Coalition to End Violence Against Women, says voyeurism needs to be understood as an act of sexual violence in which there is a violation to women who are watched.
“Imagine all of the implications of being watched when you’re doing something intimate or when you aren’t clothed,” Leigh said. “It’s an invasion of privacy. There’s a sexual transgression. There’s a lot of layers to that.”
Experts in the field also know that the behaviour can escalate to other crimes.
“We do know that many people who perpetrate sexual assault also committed voyeurism,” Leigh says.
It can also be compulsive, Leigh says, where the drive to commit the act isn’t deterred by things like a public police investigation or the risk of being caught.
“We know that those who are most targeted for sexual violence are young women, so the fact that this happened in Sandy Hill, where lots of university students reside, does coincide with that greater targeting.”
None of the allegations against Gendreau has yet been tested in court. He’s next scheduled to appear on April 8.