A 15-year-old girl repeatedly broke down in tears Monday as she described being raped by an HIV-positive man who lured her from a temporary Child and Family Services "shelter" inside a downtown Winnipeg hotel with the promise of drugs and alcohol.
The teen, who was only 12 years old at the time, was the Crown's first witness in a month-long Queen's Bench trial.
Clato Mabior faces 17 charges.
Clato Mabior, 31, has pleaded not guilty to 17 total charges, including aggravated sexual assault, forcible confinement and uttering threats involving 11 different victims. Legal experts say it's the biggest case of its kind in Winnipeg, and perhaps even in Canada.
"I was scared. He has a life-threatening disease and he didn't tell me he had it," the youngest alleged victim testified.
A large screen was put up in court so she wouldn't have to stare at Mabior, who sat in the back of the room with sheriff's officers.
The girl said Mabior -- who she knew as "K-Dog" -- had oral, vaginal and anal sex with her on several occasions and never disclosed his illness. She later found out from another teenage friend he was HIV-positive. "She told me to stop having sex with him," she said.
The teen has since tested negative for HIV.
The girl said Mabior ignored her protests to stop and would ply her with beer and even crack cocaine on one occasion inside his Sherbrook Street rooming house. She met Mabior when he began hanging around the Place Louis Riel hotel, where CFS had placed her while waiting to find a more permanent housing solution after she had been seized from her birth parents.
Placing CFS wards in hotel rooms was once a common and controversial practice. Provincial statistics show more than 100 children at a time were being temporarily placed in hotels during 2006. Critics were outraged children were being warehoused because of a shortage of foster or shelter beds in the province.
A provincial ban was announced last year following a series of sweeping reviews of Manitoba's troubled child welfare system. The teen said she eventually told police and her social worker about Mabior after they tracked her down inside his home.
Mabior was arrested in early 2006 following an unprecedented public warning by police and the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority that prompted several young women to come forward -- many of them teenage runaways.
Police in Brandon, Calgary, Vancouver, Toronto and London, Ont., were also notified about Mabior, since he lived in each city after immigrating to Canada from Sudan in 2000.
The police and WRHA warning came two weeks after the Free Press exposed that health authorities did not go to police for three years about another HIV-positive man they believed was having unprotected sex.
The 35-year-old African immigrant -- who can't be named under a court order -- is accused of putting the lives of several girlfriends at risk by hiding the fact he was HIV-positive and then engaging in unprotected sex.
His trial began last November and resumed Monday in Winnipeg.
The man took the stand in his own defence and denied any wrongdoing.
He claims he warned his partners about his illness, but they still elected to have sex with him despite the risk.
His alleged victims include a 17-year-old girl who got pregnant -- then tried to run over him with her van after learning the truth about his health. She eventually miscarried.
The man told court Monday the teen thought he was joking when he first told her about his status prior to having sex. She then never brought the issue up again as their relationship moved forward, he said.
Another victim says she began dating the accused in 2000 and had his baby in the fall of 2005. The woman told court of a rocky relationship that included several warning signs about the man's condition.
A third alleged victim has since tested positive for HIV. However, Queen's Bench Justice Nathan Nurgitz agreed with a defence motion Monday to find there was insufficient evidence to proceed with that charge. That's because the woman admitted under cross-examination to having unprotected sex with the accused even after she knew he was HIV-positive.
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