Maple Leaf Gardens sex abuser pleads guilty to 100 charges
Stuckless to stand trial on other counts
TORONTO — The man at the centre of the Maple Leaf Gardens sex abuse scandal pleaded guilty on Tuesday to 100 charges involving 18 underage vic- tims over 20 years.
Gordon Stuckless, 65, entered the plea in a Toronto courtroom in relation to offences that took place decades ago.
The charges include indecent assault, sexual assault and gross indecency and span from 1965 to 1985.
Stuckless pleaded not guilty to several charges, including sexual assault with a weapon and buggery, and his lawyer Ari Goldkind said a trial on those charges is expected to get un- derway in the next couple of weeks.
Crown attorney Kelly Beale is expected to request a dangerous offender assessment for Stuckless, but Goldkind said his client, who’s on a sex offender registry, continues his chemical castration therapy and has been living “a very law-abiding life.”
“Since 2001, he is not a danger to society,” Goldkind said. “So again, if we call ourselves a lawful society, not just a vengeful society, Mr. Stuckless doesn’t come close to meeting the test for dangerous offender.”
But Allan Donnan, one of his victims in an earlier case, said he wasn’t convinced, given the scope of Stuckless’s abuse.
“For 30 years, he was cold, he was calculated, he was premeditated, he thought about who, he thought about how, he thought about when,” Donnan said outside court.
“What proof does anyone have that since he came out of jail there hasn’t been a single recurrence?”
The Maple Leaf Gardens sex abuse scandal came to light in 1997, when Martin Kruze came forward with allegations that he was sexually abused there from the age of eight.