Man gets 21 months in prison for UBC sex assault

A man who was convicted of sexually assaulting a female student while she was sleeping at a UBC fraternity house has been sentenced to 21 months in prison.

Mathew Aaron Shufelt, 28, who pleaded guilty to the February 2015 sexual assault, will also be on probation for 18 months after serving the jail time and be on the sex offender registry for 20 years.

In imposing sentence on Shufelt, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Michael Tammen noted that the victim, who was 21 years old and a third-year student at the time of the assault, had suffered a profound and lasting impact from the attack.

“She continues to suffer the deleterious effects of the gross invasion of her personal sexual integrity perpetrated by someone she viewed as a trusted friend,” the judge said Thursday.

“It is clear that the actions of Mr. Shufelt on that evening have irrevocably altered very much for the worse the lives of two young adults.”

The judge said that the accused, a recent engineering graduate at UBC, was a young man of great promise and previously unblemished character just starting out on what looked to be a long and successful career in engineering.

“He will now have a serious criminal record as a sex offender and will be registered as such pursuant to (the sex offender registry) order.

“He may face restrictions on his ability to travel abroad. “He may have difficulty gaining employment.”

“The sentence must express society’s condemnation of the criminal conduct and attempt to send a message to the community at large that unwanted sexual advances upon a vulnerable victim, especially involving intercourse with a sleeping woman, will inevitably result in a term of imprisonment of considerable duration,” said the judge.

Shufelt and the victim had been friends at the university before he contacted her on leave from his job at a large engineering firm. They spent time at a bar, consuming a considerable amount of alcohol, before leaving for the fraternity house at which Shufelt had been a member.

At the frat house, they engaged in a drinking game before the victim went upstairs to sleep in the bed of another male friend.

Unknown to her, Shufelt later came to the room and got permission to climb into the bed, where the victim was asleep with the other male friend. During the night, she woke with pain in her vagina and discovered Shufelt penetrating her from behind.