New trial ordered on robbery, choking charges

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This article was published 24/02/2025 (382 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The province’s highest court has ordered a new trial on charges of robbery and choking against a man accused of a slew of attacks on sex workers.

The man, whose name can’t be printed due to a publication ban meant to protect his victims, was charged by Winnipeg police in attacks against eight women in December 2020 and January 2021. He was found guilty of offences against three victims who testified during his trial in Court of King’s Bench in 2023.

King’s Bench Justice Ken Champagne sentenced him to 12 years in prison for three counts of robbery, three counts of choking to overcome resistance and one count of assault causing bodily harm, saying, “these were planned attacks that targeted vulnerable women.”

Other charges were stayed or dismissed during the three-week trial in early 2023.

The man, now in his late 30s, was acquitted of the robbery and choking to overcome resistance charges in relation to one woman who was unable to travel to Manitoba to testify after her passport was stolen from her home in Ontario, because no evidence was offered in court.

Crown prosecutor Ami Kotler filed an appeal, which was heard last September.

In a written decision issued last week, Court of Appeal Justice Karen Simonsen said she and two other judges on the court found Champagne made errors in how he interpreted the law when dismissing an application for the woman to testify from elsewhere.

Simonsen set aside the acquittals and ordered a new trial on those charges.

“The trial judge’s error clearly had a material bearing on the acquittals,” she wrote.

Crown prosecutors had applied to allow the woman to testify — providing evidence about the similarity of the attack against her compared to the attacks against the other sex trade workers — via a remote video link, as she was unable to fly without her passport and wasn’t prepared to travel via a motor vehicle.

Champagne dismissed the application, in part because it was filed too late before the trial. He also dismissed a Crown application to have the woman’s video statement to police be used as evidence.

Champagne said it would be problematic for the woman to testify via video link from her home, as there was no way to assure she wouldn’t access information to assist her during testimony.

Champagne further said it would be inappropriate for her to testify from a secure room at a local police station, as it could have an impact on the substance of her testimony and it would diminish judicial independence and the appearance of impartiality.

The trial was told Winnipeg police began investigating reports that escort workers were being robbed beginning in December 2020, and determined they had been committed by the same person.

In the attacks he was convicted of, the man arranged to meet two women in their hotel room and the third at her home after contacting them on a website used by sex workers.

The case against the man ultimately sparked a lawsuit against Champagne, after one of the testifying victims’ names was mistakenly included in a court decision posted online.

She alleged in the lawsuit that she was harassed and abused as a result, but King’s Bench Justice Shawn Greenberg dismissed the suit in December, saying the claim against Champagne and the provincial government was so lacking in detail it was doomed to fail.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca