A Mission man accused of sexually assaulting a woman on a North Vancouver trail has been found guilty.
Jairus-Paul Covacha Sacramento, 23, was tried in North Vancouver Provincial Court on June 8 and found guilty the next day.
The incident happened on Feb. 13, 2022. The victim, whose identity is protected by a court-ordered publication ban, testified she was walking over the small bridge exiting the Varley Loop Trail near Rice Lake Road in Lynn Valley when a stranger approached her from behind and grabbed her buttocks and genital area.
“It was maybe a couple of seconds. I pushed him off immediately,” she testified in court, June 8.
Within 30 seconds of the assault, the victim testified she started recording video of her attacker as he tried to cover his face and walk away.
“Keep your hands to yourself,” she can be heard saying in the video. “What makes you think it’s OK to smack women in the ass?”
Asked by the Crown to explain why she described the attack as a “slap” in the video and a “grab” in her testimony, the victim said she was simply using the language available to her.
“I think it's a sad world if we find ourselves in a space where we would expect a woman to have language to describe sexual assault as part of her vernacular,” she added.
She continued to follow Sacramento while calling 911. When the operator asked her to confirm what street they were on, she went back to the nearest street sign to find out, losing sight of him.
The victim testified she waited for almost an hour for police to arrive before she gave up and went to the detachment to deliver a statement in person, something she later took public via a Global BC news story.
“I was told that there were other priority calls they needed to take at the same time,” she said. “I found it vehemently disappointing that the RCMP did not attend an assault.”
North Vancouver RCMP released an image of Sacramento’s face, hoping it would result in tips from the public. He was arrested a month after the assault in Abbotsford.
Testifying in his own defence, Sacramento denied grabbing the victim, although under cross examination he conceded he may have inadvertently brushed into her.
“I was just on my way out and I guess she thought I might have touched her so she ran after me. She ran up, hit me in the back and then was trying to picture my face. You saw the video. She was harassing me. I was just trying to go home,” he said, adding later “There's no way I was trying to touch her sexually or anything.”
Sacramento told the court he did not find the victim attractive and that “I don't need to attack women on trails.”
Sacramento’s lawyer Ashleigh Singleton also raised the issue of Sacramento’s race in how the incident played out.
“I'm going to suggest that you looked up, you just saw a darker-skinned individual in close range and you assumed that was the person who bumped into you, correct?”
“No,” the victim replied.
Ultimately, provincial court judge Joseph Galati found Sacramento guilty as charged, saying he “seemed to make up his evidence as he went along.”
“I do not accept Mr. Sacramento's evidence that he was attacked and harassed by a delusional woman, and that he had no idea why she was videotaping him. The video is clear that [the victim] accused Mr. Sacramento several times,” he said. “I reject his evidence that he did not touch [the victim’s] buttocks, or that if he did touch her, it was accidental.”
Sacramento is due back in court in September for sentencing hearings.
The victim told the court how the assault impacted her in the days and months after.
“It has made me feel vulnerable and questioned my safety,” she said. “In the first weeks following the assault, I did not leave my home. I was not able to date or feel like I could trust being alone with a man. I did not go into a park for a long time after this incident. I have not returned to [that] park. In fact, I’ve avoided North Vancouver altogether. It affected my sleep. I cried endlessly. It just felt scared and ashamed and embarrassed. Disgusted.”
