Lengthy sentence for fake-cop carjacker

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This article was published 13/09/2023 (842 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Acting as his own lawyer, convicted carjacker and fake cop Ryan Demchuk did everything he could to avoid another trip to prison.

Demchuk, 42, filed a motion to reopen his trial, claiming he had found a witness who had previously disappeared. In another motion, he argued his case should be tossed out because court paperwork did not include his correct birth date.

When those and other legal gambits didn’t work, the career criminal pleaded for leniency, claiming new fatherhood had made a law-abiding man out of him.

That didn’t work either, and on Friday a judge sentenced him to 9 ½ years in prison.

Demchuk’s “criminally entrenched attitude increases the likelihood that he will reoffend in the community,” provincial court Judge Sam Raposo said. “Rehabilitation is a possibility, but nothing more. Mr. Demchuk’s character appears, unfortunately, heavily ingrained.”

Demchuk was arrested in September 2021 after he robbed two women of their SUV on Highway 59 near the South Beach Casino and was involved in a 30-kilometre high-speed police chase that only ended after he ran over a spike belt.

In June, Demchuk was found guilty after trial of one count each of robbery, dangerous driving, possession of property obtained by crime, impersonating a police officer, assaulting a police officer and assault. An additional charge of flight from police was stayed due to a procedural error at trial.

Court heard Demchuk was driving a vehicle equipped with what resembled flashing police lights when he pulled the victims over shortly before 1 a.m. and told them they had been speeding.

Demchuk asked the driver for her licence and registration and then rummaged through both women’s purses. When the women asked what gave him the authority to do that, he showed them an imitation firearm and said “this” before forcing the women out of the car and driving away with it, stranding them on the highway.

A subsequent police chase reached speeds of up to 130 km/h before Demchuk blew out his tires running over a spike belt and he was arrested.

Demchuk was taken to the Selkirk RCMP detachment where, after his demand for medical attention was not immediately answered, he “cold-cocked” a police constable in the face and then grabbed a female civilian employee and used her as a “human shield” before other officers took him under control, Crown attorney Mike Desautels told court Friday. He called Demchuk’s actions those of a “full-grown petulant child.”

Demchuk was arrested in possession of a drug pipe and argued at trial he was under the influence of drugs at the time of his arrest. Raposo ruled there was clear evidence Demchuk was a drug user, but nothing to suggest he was intoxicated by drugs at the time of the carjacking.

Demchuk has 28 prior criminal convictions, including numerous drug, weapon and assault offences.

In February 2018, Demchuk was sentenced to four years in prison after police executed a search warrant at his Winnipeg apartment and seized a loaded 10-mm handgun. Two years earlier, he was sentenced to 18 months in jail for possession of a sawed-off rifle.

Correctional Service of Canada records show Demchuk to be a man “with a temper and an inability to control his impulses,” Desautels told court, adding “He has a clear disdain for authority” and a “record replete with conflict with authority.”

That apparent disdain was on full display during Demchuk’s many court appearances before, during and after his trial.

On Friday, Demchuk accused Raposo of using his influence as the former executive-director of Legal Aid Manitoba to deny him access to a lawyer. On two occasions he referred to Desautels as “Dangerfield,” an apparent reference to former Manitoba Crown attorney George Dangerfield, the prosecutor behind numerous high-profile wrongful convictions.

At a case conference with another judge prior to his trial, Demchuk told the judge: “You know I’ll get out of jail one day, right?”

“That is as blatant a dog-whistle threat as I have ever heard to a judicial officer,” Desautels said. “It concerns me that someone in this scenario wouldn’t conduct themselves more cautiously. He can’t control it.”

In a final address to court before sentencing, Demchuk struck a note of contrition.

“I offer my deepest apologies for this disgraceful, embarrassing behaviour displayed throughout the trial,” he said. “I was learning. I did lose my temper. But I’m not walking around punching officers out in jail. My impulses are controlled.”

Demchuk received credit for time served, reducing his remaining sentence to approximately 6 ½ years.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca