Firefighter accused of abuse as far back as 1985

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This article was published 28/09/2017 (2942 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg firefighter charged with sexually assaulting three females had been accused of domestic violence long before he began his career as a firefighter and martial arts instructor. 

Manuel Vladimir Ruiz, 52, was charged last week with several sex and drug offences, including sexual assault, sexual exploitation, forcible confinement, drug possession and providing liquor to a minor. He’s accused of sexually assaulting one youth and one woman, and of paying for sex with an underage girl.

The charges were laid more than 30 years after the first allegations of violence were filed in court against Ruiz. 

In a divorce petition filed in 1985, when Ruiz was a university student, his wife said she wanted a divorce because Ruiz beat her regularly, sometimes as frequently as every couple of days, and treated her with “physical and mental cruelty.”

The beatings began less than three months into their marriage, she alleged, saying Ruiz would force her to wear long sleeves to hide bruises.

Court documents recount a beating Ruiz allegedly inflicted after New Year’s in 1985, saying his wife had a lump on her head and a bruise on her arm where Ruiz bit her.

Ruiz’s wife later dropped the divorce petition, and Ruiz joined the Winnipeg fire department and opened his own jiu-jitsu studio, offering self-defence classes and doing contract work in various Manitoba communities.

The couple separated in 2000 and their divorce was finalized in 2011.

By then, three other women had gone to court seeking protection from Ruiz with their own allegations of domestic violence. All three protection-order applications were denied, twice by magistrates and once by a justice of the peace, in 2001, 2006 and 2010.

Court documents don’t explain why the magistrates and justice of the peace decided the women didn’t need protection from Ruiz. 

In 2001, a woman who had been one of Ruiz’s martial arts students said Ruiz threatened her, videotaped her without her knowledge and “physically and emotionally, sexually beat me up while I had been a student,” she wrote in her protection order application.

Another woman, who had previously dated Ruiz, alleged he “broke down my back door after choking me unconscious,” when she broke up with him more than a decade ago, while Ruiz was well into his career as a firefighter. She was about three months pregnant with their child at the time. Although she indicated police had been called to investigate, the Winnipeg Police Service could not confirm that Thursday. 

She applied for a protection order after Ruiz’s 21-year-old girlfriend, Melissa Nelson, died while vacationing with him in Cuba in March 2006. The woman wrote in her protection-order application that she feared for her and her daughter’s safety and believed Ruiz was being investigated for the “suspicious” death, but Nelson’s death was ruled an accident. Barbara Nelson, Melissa’s mother, has said her daughter met Ruiz when she was only 15.

 

 A spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada wrote in an emailed statement Thursday that Cuban authorities deemed Nelson’s death an accident. 

“At the time of the event, Canadian consular officials in Varadero and Havana, Cuba, and in Ottawa, were in close contact with local authorities to gather additional information and have provided consular assistance to the family, as required,” the email said, citing privacy concerns as a reason not to release more details. 

Ruiz has worked for the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service for about 25 years and has been removed from active duty. He does not have a criminal record and is presumed innocent of the charges against him.

A WPS spokeswoman said investigators are following up on tips that have come in about Ruiz. After the charges against him were announced earlier this week, police heard from concerned parents of martial arts students, possible victims and witnesses.

katie.may@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @thatkatiemay