Behaviour was odd, accused officer says

Pssst, who’s that girl?

Because there she is. And there she is. And there she is again.

Ogling Const. Leslie Nyznik at the CC Lounge & Whiskey Bar. Sidling up next to him, cooing coquettishly at the Pravda Vodka Bar. Jumping into the back seat of a cab with him — uninvited — headed for the Brass Rail. The girl who cried rape. The girl, 36-year-old woman, who has accused three off-duty Toronto police officers of having oral sex and intercourse with her when she was too drunk, perhaps drugged, to consent, as she slipped in and out of consciousness.

Nine days into the trial, the Crown closed its evidence late Thursday afternoon. Within a heartbeat, the defence opened theirs, Harry Black calling his client, Nyznik, to the witness stand.

Rewind Nyznik’s testimony a bit and the complainant makes her first appearance of significance in this narrative a few days earlier, pulling up in her vehicle alongside his cruiser, parked at a lot on Shuter St., where Nyznik and partner Const. Sameer Kara were writing up their notes.

Nyznik knew the woman, a parking enforcement officer, only casually because they all worked out of 51 Division. Kara was actually her friend, close enough that he’d invited her to a “Rookie Buy Night” scheduled for later in the week.

Whilst conversing, the woman — as a sexual assault complainant her identity is protected by a publication ban — mentioned what she was planning to wear at that event, organized primarily by Nyznik as a welcome ritual for a new recruit fresh out of police college.

“She was going to wear a really short skirt, you know, for easy access,” is how Nyznik, recalled her remark — a direct quote. “We just kind of laughed about it.” Back to the CC Lounge, where those Jan. 16, 2015, festivities began.

About a dozen, 13, 14 cops gathered, some already having imbibed a few in a room at the Westin Harbour Castle Hotel, which Nyznik had reserved earlier in the day, thoughtfully providing about 30 mini-bar size bottles of booze to get the evening launched. Booking the room was a precautionary measure. “There was going to be no drinking and driving ... to be responsible,” Nyznik explained under questioning from Black.

The plan was for Nyznik to spend the night at the hotel with Kara and Const. Joshua Cabero.

The complainant did not attend at the hotel. She joined the party — all male except for one female officer — around 8:45 at the CC Lounge. Platoon participants in the Rookie Buy Night — the scrubeenie was expected to pay only for the first round — had each ponied up $25 for dinner and drinks. The pre-booked arrangements carried a $650-tab for bottles of vodka, whiskey, beer and the food.

Nyznik said he was standing around, shooting the breeze with colleagues, when a detective spotted the complainant, asking: “Who’s that?” Nyznik explained she was a parking enforcement officer. “Why is she here?” the detective wondered. Nyznik: “Kara invited her.”

Nyznik didn’t take much further notice of the woman until she approached him. “She kind of just appeared beside me.” He said hi and introduced her to the detective. Then she apparently got a case of the mums.

“I felt kind of weird,” Nyznik told court. “She wasn’t saying anything. She was just smiling at me, tilted her head, didn’t say a word.”

Weirded out enough that Nyznik mentioned it to one of the other officers. He shuffled away toward Kara. She shuffled likewise.

Coming up to 9 p.m., when dinner was formally concluded, Nyznik told the gang he was heading across the street to Pravda. Outside, he saw the complainant with Kara, who was having a smoke.

At Pravda, the group was warmly greeted by the bar manager, a woman Nyznik had previously dated. “We remained friends.”

The manager led the group to the second-floor bar, invited Nyznik up first to another “vodka fridge” area to have a shot, and then poured rounds.

Returning to the second floor, Nyznik testified he saw the com- plainant sitting at the bar with Kara. “It looked like she was ordering some sort of drink.”

Kara was already four sheets to the wind. “He was heavily intoxicated,” Nyznik said. “He was that way when I was at CC and it continued at Pravda.”

In fact, Kara was so hammered that another cop, Elias Tissawak, who last week took the stand as a witness for the prosecution, bundled him up, stuffed him into a cab and delivered him back to the hotel, helping him into bed, where Kara promptly fell asleep.

Nyznik testified he spent most of the next 90 minutes chatting with his former girlfriend, never actually saw Kara leave.

It was as he came up the stairs, after a trip to the washroom, that the complainant loomed into his vision again. “She locked arms with me. Said ‘Kameer’s gone back to the hotel. He was supposed to be my babysitter. He’s gone back to the hotel, so you’re going to be my new babysitter tonight.’ ”

Nyznik was taken aback. “OK, whatever.” His testimony yesterday: “I just found it a bit odd. First of all, that language, that I’m going to be her babysitter. I barely knew her. I just found that whole encounter — that’s why I left and went back upstairs.”

But Nyznik had apparently clocked the woman, at least to the extent that he noted her behaviour. “She was very friendly and flirtatious with the guys, bouncing around, going guy to guy, talking to them. She was very, very happy.”

He said “happy” in a wink-wink sort of way, implying well-lubricated.

The state of the complainant’s intoxication has, in fact, been a core theme at this judge-alone trial.

The state of the complainant’s intoxication has, in fact, been a core theme at this judge-alone trial

The woman has admitted to having eight drinks that night and is seen on footage from various security cameras appearing to enjoy herself. Interestingly, investigators were never able to recover any video from the Pravda part of the barcrawl. Lawyer Black has further characterized the complainant as the aggressor in whatever sexual escapade later transpired, accusing her of inventing the hotel room orgy to which she testified last week out of morning-after remorse and fear that her reputation would be left in tatters if word ever got out.

The woman has adamantly denied this.

Anyway, it was Nyznik who suggested the dwindling party move on, because, “when I go out, I like to try out different venues.” He announced: “I’m going to go up to the Brass Rail, and, if anyone wants to join me, that’s where I’m going.”

Black: “At any point in time, did you invite (the complainant) to come to the Brass Rail?”

Nyznik: “There was never any point where I invited her to go to any of the bars. At no point to go to the Brass Rail. That’s a bar where women take their clothes off. I never gave any indication that I wanted her to go.

“I barely knew her and I’m not going to invite her to an adult strip club.”

Black reminded the witness that, in her testimony, the complainant quoted Nyznik as saying to her: “Are you all right with going to the Brass Rail?” Nyznik: “I never said that.” He walked out of Pravda with Tissawak, another officer, and the complainant. “Which surprised me, that she was coming.” But he said nothing to her.

They briefly checked out another bar nearby, which wasn’t open yet. “I knocked on the door and whoever was working recognized me. They said, come on in, it’s freezing outside and if you’d like a drink, we can give you a drink, but the bar doesn’t open until 11:30. We declined that because there was nobody there and we left.’’

So they hailed a cab, Brass Railbound.

The complainant settled into the back seat, next to Nyznik.

And that’s as far as court got Thursday.

Nyznik, Kara and Cabero have each pleaded not guilty to a charge of sexual assault.

The trial continues Friday. Rosie DiManno usually appears Monday, Friday and Saturday.