OFFICERS ACCUSED OF SEX ASSAULT
Toronto trio charged with gang assault on intoxicated female colleague in downtown hotel room in 2015
WARNING: Contains graphic language and descriptions.
Three Toronto police officers are accused of sexually assaulting a female colleague in a downtown hotel room while she was slipping in and out of consciousness and too intoxicated to consent, according to new details in a court document released Tuesday.
The statements the complainant and others made to investigators are summarized in a September 2015 police docu- ment used to obtain warrants for DNA samples of the three officers, known as an Information to Obtain (ITO). None of the allegations in the ITO has been proven in court.
The ITO was placed under a temporary publication ban that was lifted Tuesday by Superior Court Justice Faye McWatt.
Leslie Nyznik, Sameer Kara and Joshua Cabero, all officers at 51 Division, were charged with sexual assault and gang sexual assault on Feb. 19, 2015. They will be pleading not guilty, according to their lawyers. The DNA samples of two men were found in the processing of a rape kit, according to the ITO. The warrants were obtained after the officers declined to provide voluntary DNA samples. The results of the DNA analysis cannot be reported due to a publication ban.
The following account of the night is based on allegations in the ITO:
The complainant, a parking officer whose identity is protected by a publication ban and another female parking officer were invited to a “rookie night” on Jan. 16, 2015.
The complainant said Kara was the one who invited her and told her a hotel room had been rented for the night so no one would have to drink and drive.
There were eight or 10 officers present when the complainant arrived at a downtown bar at 9:30 p.m. — deliberately late to avoid any predrinking, she said. She knew only the three accused officers — in particular Kara, who met her outside the bar and bought her a rum and Coke.
She told investigators she spent most of her time socializing with Kara and at one point they kissed while ordering tequila shots. Kara said he couldn’t drink his shot, and went outside to throw up. Another 51Division officer took Kara to the hotel room that had been booked.
The complainant told Nyznik and Cabero that Kara was ill and had gone to the hotel. She said she told them they would have to take care of her, meaning she was the only woman at the party and they needed to protect her. She said she felt comfortable with them.
After they went to the last bar, the Brass Rail strip club, the complainant, Cabero and Nyznik got into a cab to go to the Westin Harbour Castle hotel to get Kara and continue to other bars, she said.
At this point, she said, she had really begun to feel the effects of the alcohol, and from then on her memory becomes hazy.
She recalls going into the hotel room, taking off her jacket and trying to wake up Kara. The next thing she remembers is being on her back and Nyznik holding her head to make her perform oral sex, the ITO states. She was unable to move, she said.
At one point, she believes, Cabero switched with Nyznik.
She doesn’t remember her boots
“Josh, stop she is out.” COMPLAINANT OF WHAT SHE REMEMBERS SAMEER KARA SAYING AS ONE MAN ASSAULTED HER
being taken off, but vaguely remembers her jeans being removed.
As one of the men penetrated her, she said, she heard Kara say: “Josh, stop she is out.”
The penetration stopped “after a little bit more coaxing” from Kara, she said.
She next recalls Kara talking to her, asking her to wake up and kiss him. She remembers being penetrated a second time.
She does not recall anal penetration but said the nurse who performed her rape kit had said it was a possibility. She recalled one of the men saying “should I f--- her in the ass.” When she woke up she was in a bed with Kara. She believes the other two officers were in the other bed. She gathered up her clothes and quickly left the hotel room and took a taxi home, where she was physically ill and passed out on the bathroom floor.
When she woke up she called a friend and told her what had happened, that she could not have consented and would not have consented to have sex with multiple people. She told investigators she had been drunk before, but had never felt unable to move or speak or had a similar loss of memory.
The complainant was hesitant to report the sexual assault — concerned both that the men were police officers and that they worked for the same employer — but went to the hospital with a friend and had a rape kit performed. She reported the sexual assault to police on Jan. 26, 2015, when, after calling in sick for four days, she went to work and had a panic attack.
The parking enforcement officer who introduced the complainant to the three officers told investigators the complainant told her she had been raped.
Nyznik and Kara both asked the officer if she’d heard from the complainant and said everything that happened was consensual, she told police.
She said they told her Kara and Cabero had sex with the complainant using condoms and Nyznik had received oral sex. Throughout, they kept asking the complainant if she was OK and said they would stop if she wanted them to, the officer said they told her.
They told her the complainant had been coming on to them the whole night, the officer said.
They said they would apologize if the complainant thought she’d been taken advantage of because they did not want there to be any hard feelings and they could not believe the encounter had snowballed, the officer said.
One of the officers present at the bar-hopping that night gave two statements to police. In the second, he said Nyznik may have said something to Cabero to the effect that the complainant wanted to have sex with the two of them.
“All women want these two guys,” the officer proffered. He did not hear the complainant say she wanted to have sex with either of the men.
A bartender at the second bar, who is also an ex-girlfriend of Nyznik, told investigators the complainant was extremely drunk — a “disaster.” At the same bar, another officer heard her say: “I’m too drunk, I’m buzzed.”
A publication ban on the ITO containing these details, requested by the defence, was lifted in response to a challenge by the Star and other media outlets.
A preliminary hearing remains scheduled for July, though the Crown has requested a direct indictment to allow the case to proceed directly to trial.
The three officers were released on bail. Alyshah Hasham can be reached at ahasham@thestar.ca