Ex-Redblack testifies at sex assault trial
Sherman's account of drunken encounter differs sharply from that of his accusers
Former Redblacks player Teague Sherman testified at his sexual assault trial on Friday, telling the judge a different version of events than the one court heard from the complainants earlier this year.
Sherman, 33, said his memory was hazy on the booze-filled night of Nov. 14, 2017, and, while there were parts of the encounter he did not recall, Sherman said he believed the sex was consensual throughout.
Assistant Crown attorney Jessica Carvell pointed out the “major gaps” in his memory as she recounted testimony from the two women who initially complained to police as Sherman claimed he had no recollection of some significant pieces of that testimony.
The women detailed a series of alleged sexual assaults during an “after-party” in a ByWard Market apartment, which came two days after the Redblacks team had been eliminated from the 2017 Canadian Football League playoffs by the visiting Saskatchewan Roughriders. Sherman testified he attended a team dinner and the season's “wind-up party” at the stadium, then headed downtown with a few teammates to meet up with some players he knew on the Roughriders.
The group ended up at the Junxion night club, where Sherman said CFL players were usually treated like VIPs, and the bouncers let them skip the lineup.
Sherman was drinking that night and told court he was intoxicated, but “not fall-down drunk” when he met up with a group of women and started dancing and flirting with one woman in particular.
The names of the complainants are protected by a publication ban.
Shortly after last call, Sherman and three football buddies headed outside and were invited by the woman, her roommate and her friend over to an apartment, where the party continued.
His friends left after about an hour, Sherman said, when he and the woman went to her bedroom
and began having sex. Sherman's version of what happened next had some considerable gaps, Carvell said, as the prosecutor challenged his recollection against the prior testimony from the complainants.
The woman became uncomfortable at one point, he recalled, and she left the bed to go to the adjoining ensuite bathroom.
He couldn't recall the exact words she used until Carvell reminded him: “She told you she was `closed for business.'”
He went into the bathroom and started “consoling her,” he testified, then began kissing her again and they resumed what he thought was consensual sex as he lifted her up at one point and carried her back to the bed.
“You kept touching her, you kept kissing her and you penetrated her after she told you she was closed for business,” Carvell repeated back. “I'm going to suggest at no point did she agree to continue having sex with you after that first sexual interaction ... You began to have sex with her, and, when she put a stop to it, you didn't take `No' for an answer,” Carvell said.
“I disagree,” Sherman said repeatedly. “Absolutely not.”
Sherman passed out, and, when he awoke, the woman was gone from the bed. He remembered getting up to use the bathroom, but, instead of the adjoining one he had just been in, he used a different bathroom across the hall.
According to earlier testimony, two women in the living room began yelling at Sherman when he emerged, naked, from the room.
One woman testified he walked into the living room and put his hand on her shoulder while touching himself, then stumbled backwards over an ottoman and continued touching himself.
“This is a complete gap in your memory,” Carvell said as Sherman testified he had no recollection of that exchange.
Sherman said he was accustomed to walking around naked in locker-rooms and suggested he may have been “covering up” with his hand, rather than touching himself.
According to his version, recounted under questioning from defence lawyer Kate Irwin, Sherman said he walked down the hall and climbed back into bed, slung his arm around the woman next to him and fell back asleep.
He claimed he only realized when he woke up — to the sound of two women yelling at him from the doorway and another woman pushing him out of her bed — that he had picked the wrong door and was in the roommate's bed.
According to the Crown's case, Sherman was not in bed under the covers and “spooning” the roommate, as he claimed in Friday's testimony, but was positioned over the sleeping woman with his hand on his genitals when the others burst into the room. Sherman denied that, but acknowledged sending an apologetic message to the roommate, who contacted him the next day via Instagram.
She wrote she was “traumatized by what you did to me.”
Sherman replied he was “unsure of what all happened ... but I feel very horrible this morning and should have never put anyone in that position.” Sherman insisted in court he was apologizing for climbing in the wrong bed.
“I'm suggesting you're apologizing to her for being drunk and climbing on top of her in bed while you were naked,” Carvell said. “You walked into that bedroom, you saw a woman in the bed, you climbed onto the bed and began touching yourself. And that's why you are apologizing.”
Sherman again disagreed.