A Mississauga couple has been convicted of drugging another couple and sexually assaulting a woman during a booze-fuelled night that left the victims without memories of the sex acts a judge says were forced upon them.
Marcia Vant, 30, and her husband, David Vant, 39, had pleaded not guilty to sexual assault and administering a “stupefying thing” to a couple they met in a bar in February 2009. They are to be sentenced in Brampton court on July 14.
The identities of the victims were protected in the judge-alone trial before Justice Silja Seppi.
The centrepiece of the Crown’s case was a cellphone video the male victim admitted shooting at the Vants’ apartment during a 24-period. Neither he nor his girlfriend had any memory of it because they were drugged, the Crown said during the trial.
In the video, David Vant and the male cheer Marcia and the female as they simulated sex while wearing tight clothing and later as Marcia fondles the woman’s breasts.
The victims admit they drank heavily at the Vants’ apartment and earlier at a local bar, where they met the accused pair for the first time. Defence lawyers painted them as willing participants, but the Crown insisted it was drugs that caused their memory lapses.
On Tuesday, Seppi found both defendants guilty of administering a noxious substance to both victims and of sexual assault causing bodily harm against the woman.
The Vants were acquitted of other charges, including administering a stupefying substance to the cousin of the female victim, who later showed up at the apartment with her baby, and trying to procure the female victim into prostitution.
Marcia Vant was also acquitted of sexually assaulting the male victim and trying to take the cousin’s baby.
The Vants showed little emotion as Seppi read her decisions, occasionally glancing at family members in the courtroom, including Marcia’s mother and the couple’s 11-year-old son. Marcia waved at the boy as they were later led from court.
The Vants remain in custody. Crown counsel Mara Basso said she would seek additional jail time for the Vants beyond the 16 months they’ve been in custody awaiting trial.
The 32-year-old male victim attended Thursday’s hearing and said only that he was “satisfied” with the verdicts. The 23-year-old female victim was not in court, he said, because she was caring for their 4-month-old baby at home.
He said both would file victim impact statements with the court and withhold comments until after the Vants are sentenced next month.
Marcia Vant’s mother described the case as a “nightmare” that has weighed heavily on the couple’s son and daughter.
She said Marcia has not been physically well and has had difficulty getting medical help in jail. “There is a lump in her chest and she can’t even complain about it,” she explained. “She gets harassment in the detention centre.”
Peter Scully, lawyer for David Vant, said he would recommend his client to appeal Seppi’s verdicts.
He said “inconsistencies or implausibilities” in the couple’s testimony were obviously excused by the judge because she believed they were “either being impaired by alcohol or a stupefying drug or a combination of both.
“I think it is important to bear in mind that no drug was ever found, either in their bodies or at the residence or indeed at the restaurant,” Scully said. “So it’s only on their word, the complainants’ word, that they say that they were drugged.”
Scully said the trial was about the victims’ credibility, which he said was undermined by the video filmed by the male victim, “which went on for hours, which portrayed, in my view, nothing more than drunken partying going on between consenting adults.”
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