SELECTED CASE LAW

BRITISH COLUMBIA:

2015 BCCA 338

In 2015 BCCA 338, Mr. M was convicted of fraud, sexual assault, assault, uttering threats, and extortion.

Mr. M was a serial con-artist who abused, threatened, and defrauded women he met on online dating sites. He pretended to be a wealthy Sicilian businessman and claimed that, in his culture, women and men who dated automatically became married spouses, that husbands maintained complete domination and control over their wives in these relationships, and both spouses had to uphold gruesome and patriarchal family traditions. For example, Mr. M told women that spouses needed to tattoo “Property of [Spouse’s Name]” on their stomachs. He convinced one woman to get the tattoo and told others that they could be killed for disobeying him.

Mr. M also claimed to be a gynaecologist and often performed fraudulent gynaecological exams on his victims. He lied and said that women had sexually transmitted infections when they did not, and submitted his victims to cruel and degrading punishments. In one case, Mr. M told a young immigrant woman that he had reported her to immigration officers because she had “sexually teas[ed] him.” He said that she would be deported unless they had sex, because she had “touched him and did not have sex in the end.” When the woman protested, Mr. M remarked, “Don’t you know we have lots of human rights laws in Canada?” She eventually had sex with him, fearing that she would be deported if she did not.[1]

Mr. M was ultimately declared a dangerous offender and sentenced to an indeterminate period of imprisonment, a decision which was upheld on appeal.

Also see: 2014 BCCA 302 (Appeal); 2012 BCCA 364 (Application for order that offender not be moved to penitentiary); 2012 BCSC 957 (Application for dangerous offender declaration); 2006 BCSC 1681 (Trial).


[1] 2006 BCSC 1681 at para 123.

Criminal Offence(s): Extortion, Sexual Assault