Police warn public after sex offender freed from jail

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This article was published 11/07/2022 (1213 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A convicted sex-offender, who’s considered at a high risk to commit more crimes against women and girls, has been released from jail.

Winnipeg police warned that Curtis Leroy George, 30, was released from Headingley Correctional Centre on Sunday, having served 299 days for uttering threats and failing to comply with the conditions of a release order. He’s expected to live in Winnipeg.

George has a lengthy criminal record, including a slew of assaults and sex offences, that dates back to 2010.

He was first convicted of sex crimes in 2011 when he was 19. He was jailed for five counts of sexual assault, one count of sexual interference involving a 13-year-old girl, and one count of assaulting a female jail guard at Headingley.

He pleaded guilty to a spree of sex assaults in May and June 2010.

In one incident, George was walking near the Canada Revenue Agency building on Stapon Road, when he began to follow a woman. He pulled her to the ground and attempted to touch her breasts and buttocks, but she managed to fight him off.

He left his baseball cap at the scene, and RCMP officers were able to later link him to the crime.

He also committed three sex assaults against women in different areas of the city. In each case, he rode up behind the victims on his bicycle and slapped them on their buttocks.

When he was arrested a short time later, he admitted he’d assaulted a woman jogging in Assiniboine Park. She was able to fight him off and he fled with her headphones.

Court heard George, an Indigenous man from Easterville, has significant cognitive impairments. He doesn’t understand the consequences of his behaviour. Despite being older than 18, he had been in the care of Child and Family Services at the time of the 2010 offences.

George pleaded guilty to criminal harassment and was sentenced to two years in custody on May 3, 2018.

Court was told the harassment began in April 2016 and continued for nearly two years. the victim had been walking in the downtown skywalk, as she did routinely, and noticed the accused following and leering at her. She ducked into a store, where she stayed for 15 minutes. She was able to walk back to her workplace, which connects to the skywalk.

He followed her as she ran to up a staircase to her work, forcing open a door and yelling “you better run, you f—-ing bitch,” court heard.

The victim reported the incident to her superiors, who reported it to internal workplace security and skywalk security.

The harassment in the skywalk continued regularly until May 2017, when the victim stopped walking through the downtown corridors over her lunch break out of fear of George.

He began calling her workplace to ask for her, and he waited for her in or near her workplace parkade, for nearly another year. On one occasion, he placed his hands in his pants, rubbed his genitals and made inappropriate gestures with his tongue.

On Feb. 13, 2018, George waited for the victim in the parkade. When he saw her in her vehicle, he pulled down his pants and began to masturbate. She called police and he was charged with harassment.

As part of his probation order, George is banned from Portage Place, cityplace, cityplace parkade, Canada Life Centre and the skywalk that connects those buildings, as well as places children could be present.

George has been subject to multiple public notifications from police. Most recently, the public was warned of his release from Milner Ridge Correctional Centre in October 2021, having served a sentence for mischief under $5,000.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @erik_pindera