Ex-teacher charged with more sex offences

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This article was published 19/12/2024 (287 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A former teacher accused of sexually assaulting a student and secretly recording videos in a family change room at Seven Oaks Pool is facing new charges, after police identified four more alleged victims.

Matthew James Mousseau is now accused of offences against girls aged 12 to 17 — three of whom were students in a program in which he was their mentor, the Winnipeg Police Service said Thursday.

Police have identified five alleged victims since an investigation into child abuse images and sexual exploitation began in July, spokeswoman Const. Dani McKinnon told the Free Press.

McKinnon said there is a potential for more people to come forward.

“These (four victims) were identified by the investigators working backward… after getting digital evidence,” she said.

The WPS internet child exploitation unit allegedly found digital evidence of sexually exploitative conversations between Mousseau and young girls, and sexually exploitative images.

Police then learned about alleged incidents between January and September. Mousseau, who previously worked for the Seven Oaks and Winnipeg school divisions, was arrested Tuesday for the third time in three months.

He was held in custody.

In one case, the 37-year-old allegedly picked up a former teenage student who requested a ride, and drove her to his home, where he took photos of her while she spent the night sometime between January and May.

He is accused of secretly recording a video of a separate teenage girl, who knew him from the community, at his home Jan. 22. He allegedly performed an indecent act in the video.

In a third case in February or March, Mousseau groomed a female student who turned to him for emotional support, and cultivated a sexually exploitative relationship with messages between the two, police allege.

He is accused of providing her with cannabis and sexually assaulting her, after picking her up and taking her to his home March 26.

Police said Mousseau allegedly bought and used alcohol and cannabis with a former teenage student and another minor, who has not yet been identified, after giving them a ride in July or August.

Mousseau is accused of sexually assaulting one of the previously mentioned students at his home between Sept. 17-19, after they arranged to meet in person, police said.

The new charges include voyeurism; making, printing, publishing or possessing child pornography for the purpose of publication; indecent exposure to a person under 16, luring a person under 18 and supplying liquor to a minor.

Mousseau was first arrested Oct. 2 and charged with possession of child pornography, accessing child pornography and voyeurism.

Police allegedly found child sexual abuse images on a mobile device, leading to the discovery of videos of children and adults in “various stages of undress” in Seven Oaks Pool’s family change room.

The videos were recorded in April 2023 and May 2024.

After his initial arrest, Mousseau was freed on a release order as mandated by the Criminal Code, police said.

He was rearrested Nov. 3 and charged with sexual assault and sexual exploitation, after a woman told police she had been groomed by a student support worker from a Seven Oaks School Division after-school program that she attended between May 2019 and August 2020, when she was a teenager.

Mousseau was previously listed online as a student-parent support worker for the Seven Oaks Wayfinders program.

The division has confirmed he worked in Seven Oaks as an educational assistant between September 2016 and June 2018, and a student-parent support worker from August 2018 until October 2020.

WSD has said Mousseau worked there from 2021 until he resigned May 7. Online material described him as the division’s Indigenous way of life teacher or a cultural support worker.

After police detained Mousseau on Nov. 3, his lawyer and the Crown prosecutor proposed a consent release to a judicial justice of the peace, who accepted it that day, which allowed him to be released — with conditions — to await further proceedings, court records show.

Consent releases are proposed when prosecutors believe an accused can be safely released ahead of trial, provided they follow court orders and attend court.

That Nov. 3 release was revoked upon his arrest on Tuesday. Mousseau is behind bars awaiting further bail proceedings.

chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca