Violent sexual predator declared dangerous offender

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This article was published 1/10/2013 (2178 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg man who went on a "violent sexual rampage" and attacked three vulnerable people — including an eight-year-old boy — in the span of mere hours has been declared a dangerous offender.

Peter Lloyd Laporte, 39, learned his fate this morning in the Court of Queen's Bench. He will be locked up indefinitely until he can prove he's no longer a public threat, Justice Perry Schulman ruled.

"Laporte has no remorse for his sexual crimes or empathy for his victims," Schulman said in a 20-page written decision. "Laporte's problems are so numerous, so serious and so inter-related that he is unlikely to significantly reduce the risk that he presents in the foreseeable future," the judge wrote.

Laporte was convicted of several serious sex-related charges after a lengthy trial in 2012 – a proceeding in which his own mother played a crucial role in identifying him in security video police used to track him down.

On Nov. 23, 2008, Laporte followed a child into an apartment block on Balmoral Street, taking him into a stairwell and violently sexually assaulting him. The boy escaped and ran for help after someone came into the stairwell. The boy was taken to hospital and treated for serious injuries.

The attack was partially captured on surveillance tape. Laporte's mother identified him as the adult in the video, despite Laporte denying any involvement at trial. There was also DNA evidence against him. The victim, now 12, continues to suffer deep emotional scars, including suicidal thoughts, and "hates who he is," court was told.

About 6:45 p.m. the same day, Laporte went to a Cumberland Avenue apartment block and cornered a 23-year-old woman who was holding her two-year-old child in an elevator. He held a knife against her body and tried to pull the two victims into a stairwell once they exited. Another tenant interrupted the incident. Again there was video surveillance and Laporte was identified as the attacker.

The final incident happened around 9:30 p.m. that day when he attacked a 48-year-old woman who was walking to work from her Agnes Street home. Laporte offered her some alcohol and she went with him to the same Cumberland apartment block where he began attacking her and eventually forced sexual intercourse on her.

A caretaker heard the woman's screams and rushed to help, but Laporte attacked him. The caretaker eventually overpowered Laporte and sat on him until police arrived. Laporte lashed out at the arresting officers, kicking and punching them while screaming he had HIV and was going to infect them.

He was also convicted of an eerily similar attack on a woman dating back to 2007. The charge was initially stayed and Laporte sprung from jail just weeks before the sex spree after the victim became critically injured in an unrelated incident and couldn't testify.

Laporte has serious addictions-related issues, "disorders" Schulman said are "so severe" that he presents as a public danger because of them.

His criminal record stretches back into the early 1990s, but his most recent crimes were more serious, Schulman suggested.

"His career of crimes demonstrates that he constitutes a threat to the life, safety or physical or mental well-being of other persons," the judge wrote.

 

— with file from Mike McIntyre