Former sex worker recounts terror, lasting effects of being beaten, bound, discarded in woods in 2021

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/12/2024 (384 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A former sex worker fought through tears as she told a judge of the “life sentence” Meris Hot handed her after beating her, binding her limbs with packing tape and tossing her in a remote wooded area.

“This man changed my whole life forever,” the 53-year-old Indigenous woman said at a sentencing hearing last month. “I live in pain. I live in fear. I have to use a walker because of this man… I have nightmares. I’m scared of the dark. This is the life sentence he has given me.”

But something positive was salvaged from that dark day, Aug. 21, 2021, the woman said.

“It also changed my life for good, because I have stopped using crack and no longer work the streets,” she said.

Hot, 26, was convicted after trial of assault, forcible confinement, uttering threats and obtaining sexual services for consideration.

“This man changed my whole life forever… This is the life sentence he has given me.”– victim impact statement

“This offence is a denial of (the victim’s) humanity, converting her to an object to be sexually dominated and that was bound, hurt and almost disposed of,” said Crown attorney Carolina Arjona, who last month urged provincial court Judge Michelle Bright to sentence Hot to nine years in prison.

The victim testified at trial she was working on Pritchard Avenue in the early morning when Hot drove by and asked if she wanted to “go for a ride and get high.”

The woman, who court heard was struggling with a crack addiction, got in Hot’s car and the two drove to her cousin’s home where, with $50 she received from Hot, the woman purchased crack.

The woman testified Hot snorted cocaine before she performed a sex act on him in the car and Hot proceeded to drive to Highway 59, telling her he was going “somewhere private where no one will bother us.”

Hot turned east on Garven Road, and pulled over near a work site where the two consumed drugs, the woman said. She said Hot got out of the car to look for something in the trunk, where she saw piles of cash, “like something you would expect a drug dealer to have.”

The woman said she performed another sex act on Hot, after which he made repeated trips to the trunk and became aggressive and angry, claiming he couldn’t find his money.

Hot drove them to a nearby construction site, got out of the car and directed the woman to follow him to an area where they could have sex.

The woman said she saw Hot hiding a knife in his hand and started running away. He caught her, pulled her to the ground and started choking her before dragging her into the bushes and binding her ankles, knees, wrists, neck and mouth with packing tape.

“It also changed my life for good, because I have stopped using crack and no longer work the streets.”– victim impact statement

“He said he was going to kill me,” the woman testified.

Hot removed the tape from the woman’s mouth and forced her into another sex act before returning to his car, threatening: “If I can’t find what I’m looking for, you are going to be sorry,” the woman told court.

The woman struggled against her restraints, first freeing her wrists and then her ankles and knees before running through a field, following the sounds of traffic. The woman, wearing only a bra and with tape still around her neck, ran onto Garven Road, where she flagged down a passing motorist.

“I literally looked around in that bush and said: ‘This is it, this is where I am going to die, and I am going to become a stat,’” the woman said in a police interview that same day. “Nobody is going to find me for a long time… but my bones will be here. I looked around and tried to accept it and pray to God, please, if there is a God, please help me now. If you say you love me, help me now.”

Hot testified he had been out celebrating his birthday with friends when the woman flagged him down and asked if he wanted to “hang out.” Hot claimed he had no idea the woman was a sex worker and the two talked about drugs before picking up crack and driving to Garven Road. Hot testified they talked about sex and the woman told him she was into “rough sex” and asked to be tied up.

Hot testified the sex was consensual, and claimed the woman was high and started “freaking out” over a payment dispute.

Bright later rejected Hot’s evidence as “contrived and self-serving.”

Hot’s actions were driven not by intoxication, but by his “uninhibited intent and disregard,” Arjona said.

“It was his birthday, and this was not the end of a night of excess,” she said. “It was his final gift to himself.”

“It was his birthday, and this was not the end of a night of excess. It was his final gift to himself.”– Crown attorney Carolina Arjona

The sentencing hearing resumed Tuesday with defence lawyer Hayley Allardyce urging Bright to consider a sentence of just under 4 1/2 years.

Allardyce said Hot, who immigrated to Canada from Macedonia as a child, fell into drug and alcohol abuse as a teen in a bid for acceptance. As an adult, Hot was involved in a serious car crash that sent him into depression and intensified his addictions, she said.

While in custody, Hot was candid with the writer of a pre-sentence report, voluntarily disclosing uncomplimentary aspects of his personal history, including his use of pornography and a stint selling drugs, Allardyce said.

“This demonstrated he wants to seek help,” she said. Hot’s arrest “was a sobering wakeup call for him. It has made him realize he needs to change his life and he needs to look inward to do so.”

Court heard Tuesday that Hot was found guilty last month of sexually assaulting another Indigenous woman in April 2020 and is awaiting sentencing. Court was told the 19-year-old woman was on the street with nowhere to go when Hot came upon her, offered her drugs and took her to a parking lot where he forced her to perform a sex act.

Bright will sentence Hot for his crimes against the 53-year-old woman at a later date.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca