Firefighter acquitted in sexual assault case

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This article was published 05/03/2021 (1679 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg firefighter and martial arts instructor has been acquitted of sexually assaulting a woman during a lengthy off-and-on relationship she claimed began when she was a teen.

Manny Ruiz, 56, stood trial last year, charged with two counts of sexual assault, three counts of uttering threats, and one count of forcible entry involving a now 46-year-old woman.

While Ruiz’s testimony was at times “suspect,” “somewhat evasive” and “not entirely believable,” the evidence of the alleged victim did not prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, said Justice Joan McKelvey.

“This matter presents, as do many of this nature, as a he said/she said situation,” McKelvey wrote in a 49-page decision. “These circumstances are always difficult to discern, and particularly so when the matter is historic in nature.”

McKelvey said inconsistencies and shortcomings in the evidence of both Ruiz and the alleged victim left her unable to determine who to believe.

“The Crown’s evidence was not sufficiently compelling to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt,” she said. “In all the circumstances, I am satisfied that it would be unsafe to enter any of the counts on the indictment.”

At trial, the woman testified she met Ruiz when she was 12 and they were both taking classes at a taekwondo studio.

The woman testified they maintained a friendship throughout her teen years and into her 20s. She told court when she was 25, Ruiz sexually assaulted her in her apartment, and had sex with her against her will on other occasions at his home and Winnipeg martial arts studio.

Ruiz testified he didn’t remember meeting the woman before 1997 or 1998, when she jogged past a Sherbrook Street patio where he had been sharing drinks with some of his jiu-jitsu students.

Over time, the two became friends, Ruiz said, with the woman making the first sexual overture during a visit to her apartment for tea in 2002. Ruiz said they stopped short of sex, with him telling the woman he had to go.

Some days later, the woman invited Ruiz to a Grosvenor Avenue bed and breakfast where she was working, and the two had sex, he said.

Ruiz testified the woman provided him with a booking schedule at the bed and breakfast, so he would know when it was clear to go over for sex.

The woman denied having consensual sex with Ruiz, telling court he threatened to burn her mother’s house down and poison her dogs if she did not comply with his demands.

The woman alleged Ruiz forced her to lodge his teenage son at the bed and breakfast for a number of weeks. When, on her boss’s order, she kicked the teen out, Ruiz broke down the door with a shovel, the woman said.

Ruiz told court he had asked if his son could stay at the bed and breakfast, and agreed to pay her $1,500 for a month’s rent. Ruiz admitted he was angry at the woman for kicking his son out, but denied forcing his way inside.

Ruiz suggested the incident was prompted by his reaction a week earlier, when, at a Corydon Avenue restaurant, the woman broached the topic of marriage.

“I laughed and she started crying and ran out of the restaurant,” he said. “I thought it was just friends with benefits. It was never formalized. It was never anything else.”

Ruiz stood trial accused of sexually assaulting a second woman, but was found not guilty in October after the Crown conceded there was not enough evidence to support a conviction.

Court records show three different women sought court-ordered protection from Ruiz in 2001, 2006, and 2010.

All three requests were denied by the court, including one made after the death of Ruiz’s 21-year-old girlfriend, Melissa Nelson. She died while on vacation with Ruiz in Cuba in 2006. Cuban authorities ruled her death accidental.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca