Two workers at a Montreal transitional home experienced a nightmare in July 2018. A hooded man with a gun sexually assaulted them one by one and then sprayed them with cayenne pepper before they fled.
Posted at 3:09pm
That hooded man is the defendant Jean-Pierre Bellemare, Crown Prosecutor Me Patrick Lafrenière hammered out Tuesday in his opening statement to a jury at the Montreal courthouse. The 56-year-old is accused of two sexual assaults with a gun against two women in their 20s.
That mundane day of July 31, 2018 took a “tragic” turn for Fanny* and Geneviève*, two employees of the Center Emmanuel-Grégoire, a temporary shelter in east Montreal that houses inmates who are being released from prison. Jean-Pierre Bellemare spent almost a month in this establishment in 2011, prosecutors want to prove.
Fanny and Geneviève are working in the basement that evening. At around 10:40 p.m., they heard the sound of a door. Suddenly, a hooded man appears with what appears to be a weapon. They will be raped one by one by the intruder, the two complainants will testify, Me Lafrenière explained.
” [Fanny] will say that the hooded man will lean her against the desk, he will put his hand in her bra and take her breast. [Fanny] will tell that after that the hooded man with the gun will order him to perform fellatio,” the prosecutor said.
“After that, after I’m done [Fanny]the hooded man will turn around [Geneviève], it will do pretty much the same thing. He’ll lean Madame against the desk, she’ll get up with her panties on her knees. The hooded man will try to break in [Geneviève] first in the anus, then he will try to penetrate her vaginally,” Me Lafrenière continued in his presentation of the case to the jury.
And as if the horror the two women experience wasn’t “disgusting enough already,” the hooded man will take turns making them look at him in order to spray cayenne pepper in their faces. Then he will flee.
During the attacks, the attacker spoke English with an Italian accent, the complainants will testify, Me Lafrenière underlined. However, the public prosecutor’s office wants to demonstrate that this person is “not primarily English-speaking or Italian-speaking”.
The evidence against Jean-Pierre Bellemare is plentiful: his DNA was found in several places on the clothing and body of the two women, and his semen was found in the anus of a victim listed by Me Lafrenière. In addition, the accused himself made a confession to the police and wrote a letter of apology.
Jean-Pierre Bellemare represents himself alone. The trial is scheduled for a few weeks before Superior Court Judge Daniel Royer.
*Fictitious name to protect complainants’ identities