Police sex-assault trial wraps up
Decision in case involving three Toronto officers expected in August
The female parking enforcement officer with dreams of becoming a cop had “many more reasons to remain silent than to report” that she’d been sexually assaulted by three Toronto police officers in a hotel room in January 2015, Crown prosecutor Philip Perlmutter told the judge in closing submissions Tuesday.
Earlier that day, defence lawyer Harry Black argued the more likely scenario was that the complainant made up the allegations because she regretted having consensual sex.
“The complainant came to regret her own choices and decisions immediately after she voluntarily and consensually engaged in the sexual activity in question because she feared embarrassment, what people would say, what people would think, what people would whisper, what people might joke about and how this would affect her reputation and potentially her employment,” he said.
“And she set out to create a narrative that would render her blameless for what occurred.” Two defence lawyers and the Crown gave closing submissions Tuesday at the end of the high-profile trial of 51 Division officers Leslie Nyznik, Sameer Kara and Joshua Cabero, who have pleaded not guilty to sexual assault. Of the three, only Nyznik testified, claiming the complainant either initiated the sexual acts or agreed to them. A decision in the case is expected in August.
On Tuesday, Black argued she began creating that narrative on her way home from the hotel later that night.
“The complainant’s evidence was quite clear,” Perlmutter responded in his submissions arguing the complainant could not and did not consent to sexual activity.
“She testified she never wanted to report and she only did so when she broke down upon returning to work,” he said, noting that she disclosed the sexual-assault allegations to a female supervisor who was a mandatory reporter.
The complainant, whose identity is under a publication ban, testified she was orally and vaginally penetrated by the accused as she lay immobile, unable to speak or resist, and drifted in and out of consciousness.
She testified she believes she was drugged that night, possibly at the Brass Rail — the last stop on a night of bar-hopping during a “rookie buy night” organized for 51 Division officers.
Perlmutter said the Crown is not suggesting the accused officers drugged the complainant, but that they “ought to have observed her state and made proper enquiries.”
Kara’s lawyer Alan Gold said in his closing submissions Monday the complainant was not incapacitated and that she simply cannot remember consenting to the sexual acts.
Cabero’s lawyer, Patrick Ducharme, told the court Tuesday that the complainant’s memories are hy- perbolic and contradicted by the video evidence.
“She has in fact engaged in a reconstruction of events in her mind . . . they are false memories,” he said. “She may fervently believe she was sexually assaulted, but her evidence is unreliable.” Ducharme suggested the complainant tailored her symptoms to fit with an internet search she did about date-rape drugs while waiting for her rape kit to be done at the hospital.
Crown prosecutor Perlmutter said searching for symptoms online is a “completely normal” thing to do while waiting at the hospital, as normal as looking up what a tick bite looks like.
Perlmutter argued the complainant’s account of what happened in the room is corroborated by the DNA evidence and in part the account given by Nyznik.
Perlmutter said Nyznik was “clearly desperate for sex” and that he was prepared to lie to get it — a reference to him telling a stripper at the Brass Rail that they were with an adult film crew from Miami and suggesting she come to the hotel for a “private audition.”
Nyznik is an “opportunist who should not be believed,” Perlmutter said.
Video of the complainant getting out of a cab at the Westin Harbour Castle hotel and waiting for the elevator with Nyznik and Cabero may end up being a crucial part of the case.
Black said the videos show the complainant smiling, engaged in conversation and walking normally.
Perlmutter said the complainant put her hand on the cab to stabilize herself, though he said the defence attributes this to the cobblestones and the complainant’s heels.
The defence is seeking to have the charges thrown out because the police failed to obtain crucial video from the hotel and the cab.
Justice Molloy will issue her decision on the lost evidence application and the sexual-assault allegations on Aug. 9.