Convictions upheld in ‘violent’ College Street Bar sexual assault case

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The owner of the defunct College Street Bar and one of his managers had their sexual assault and drugging convictions upheld in a ruling released Thursday by the Ontario Court Appeal after a “prolonged, violent and degrading” attack on a woman in 2016 in front of the establishment’s security cameras.

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Gavin MacMillan, who owned the now-shuttered College Street Bar, and his manager Enzo De Jesus Carrasco were convicted in 2019 of sexual assault and administering a stupefying substance before being sentenced to nine years in prison in 2020.

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Carrasco has remained behind bars since then, while MacMillan has mostly been out on bail pending an appeal. MacMillan will now start serving his prison sentence, the Toronto Star reported, while also seeking permission to appeal the decision in front of the Supreme Court of Canada.

MacMillan and Carrasco sought to have their convictions appealed in 2020. They said the trial judge, Justice Michael Dambrot, erred in admitting certain expert evidence, in failing to admit evidence regarding the complainant’s prior sexual activity and communications and in his jury charge with respect to consent and that he created a reasonable apprehension of bias.

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They also said Dambrot made various errors in principle in respect to the sentences imposed.

The three-judge panel was unanimous in striking down the appeal.

“The circumstances in this case demanded significant custodial sentences,” Justice Mary Lou Benotto said on behalf of the panel in their conclusion. “The offences were, in a word, horrifying. The appellants’ actions demonstrated a sense of entitlement and disrespect for the personal integrity of the complainant.”

Court has heard that MacMillan and Carrasco engaged in “violent sexual activity” with a woman at the bar in Little Italy during the early morning hours of Dec. 15, 2016, while she was “highly intoxicated” and appeared to be losing consciousness at times.

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The court decision said the woman, who cannot be named and was 24 at the time, was slapped and given cocaine to keep her awake before being vaginally, digitally and orally penetrated. She was also forcibly restrained and prevented from putting on her clothes at times, while seeming to float in and out of consciousness.

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MacMillan and Carrasco had argued the sex was consensual, saying she “made sexual comments and gestures during the bartending event that indicated an interest in BDSM.”

“A suggestion that the complainant gave broad advance consent to sexual activity is not just a ‘dressed up’ version of the twin myths, it is wrong in law,” Benotto said.

Benotto also wrote that expert witness Dr. Kari Sampel, an emergency department staff physician and medical director of the Sexual Assault and Partner Abuse Care Program at the Ottawa Hospital, “did not testify beyond the limits of her expertise, she did not demonstrate partiality and the trial judge did not err by admitting her evidence.”

As for Dambrot himself, Benotto said the “matters raised come nowhere close to raising, let alone establishing, an apprehension of bias.

“The trial judge dealt with the appellants’ concerns of a reasonable apprehension of bias in the mistrial application,” she said. “It is very clear that this was a long jury trial with emotionally charged aspects.”

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