Accused shared video of alleged assault with boss
Bar manager discussed his sexual interaction with half-naked worker
The former manager for a downtown Toronto bar on trial for sexual assault and voyeurism admitted in court Friday that he told his boss to watch surveillance video footage of him with a partially naked female employee.
“Is it clear could u see her well or not?” Enzo DeJesus Carrasco texted then College Street Bar owner Gavin MacMillan in 2016, while it appears MacMillan was watching the footage.
“I don’t see her naked at all. I call bulls--t,” MacMillan responded, according to texts extracted from DeJesus Carrasco’s phone. “Show me her tits. I don’t want to see her ass. Lame.”
The female employee testified on Thursday that, while in the basement office of the nowclosed bar, DeJesus Carrasco pulled her pants down, pushed her against the wall and used his hands to sexually assault her.
DeJesus Carrasco pleaded not guilty to all charges at the start of the judge-alone trial, and took the stand in his defence
Friday. He denied sexually assaulting the complainant, whose identity is covered by a publication ban.
DeJesus Carrasco, 35, testified that no sexual activity took place in the bar office with the female employee, but he did give her a massage at her request.
To help ease tension in her back, he said he suggested massaging a “pressure point in the middle of the glutes.” But when he tried to do it over her pants, she could not feel it, he said. The woman then pulled her pants down so he could massage the pressure point directly, at her request, he said.
While her pants were down a photograph was secretly taken by another employee at the bar who was also DeJesus Carrasco’s roommate, he testified.
The roommate shared the image with DeJesus Carrasco who later texted the image to a friend by mistake, he said.
DeJesus Carrasco is also charged with transmitting an intimate image without consent.
MacMillan, the former bar owner, is not charged in connection with this case.
Both MacMillan and DeJesus Carrasco were convicted of gang sexual assault and drugging another woman at the bar in December 2016.
After a jury trial last year, both men were sentenced to nine years in prison, but are now out on bail pending appeal.
The convictions may be overturned due to errors in the way the jury was selected following recent changes in legislation.
During cross-examination Friday, DeJesus Carrasco said he and MacMillan would “kiss and tell.”
The Crown responded it was more like “kiss and show.”
“By ‘kiss and tell,’ you mean we would tell each other what we did and we would show each other what we did on that surveillance video?” prosecutor Rick Nathanson asked during cross-examination.
“Correct,” said DeJesus Carrasco.
He maintained the employee knew there were cameras in the office, but admitted he did not tell her MacMillan was going to watch the footage the next day.
When MacMillan texted saying he “can’t see sh--t” in the video, DeJesus Carrasco replied: “F--k.”
“What are you frustrated about,” asked Nathanson.
“That he couldn’t see the video,” said DeJesus Carrasco.
He also texted MacMillan about getting a better camera in the office, which he testified meant they needed a higher resolution camera.
“So you can see better the women down there, when you kissed and told, right?” Nathanson said.
“Correct,” DeJesus Carrasco replied.
When asked by his lawyer why he sent the texts about the woman to MacMillan, DeJesus Carrasco said she had flirted with both men during her hiring interview.
“Let the best man win,” he said.
DeJesus Carrasco said the employee came back to his home later that night and consensual sexual activity took place.
The woman testified that she remembers little about what happened at DeJesus Carrasco’s home and said she believes she was under the influence of an “external substance” and was not in “good shape to properly object.” She said she had not intended to go to DeJesus Carrasco’s home that night. DeJesus Carrasco is not charged with sexual assault in connection with anything that took place at his home that night.
He testified that, while he and the woman were at his home, his roommate returned and showed him the photo he’d taken of them in the office.
He said he showed the photo to the woman.
“She laughed and said he was a peeping Tom.”
He said he asked her jokingly if he could “share the photo as his new girlfriend,” and that she said she didn’t care about what he did with the photo.
The woman testified that she did not know about the existence of the photo until police showed it to her after it was recovered from DeJesus Carrasco’s phone after his arrest in the gang sexual assault case.
During cross-examination, DeJesus Carrasco’s defence lawyer Hussein Aly suggested the woman made up the sexual assault at the bar office, in part to bolster the Crown’s case against DeJesus Carrasco in the gang sexual assault case.
He also suggested her memory was unreliable, and that if such a sexual assault had happened, she would have disclosed it to warn others.
The trial continues on Tuesday.