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A Mission man who sexually assaulted a woman by groping her on a North Vancouver trail last year will escape time in jail, but will serve a six-month conditional sentence, including three months of house arrest, and be left with a criminal record, a provincial court judge has ruled.
Jairus-Paul Covacha Sacramento, 23, was handed the sentence Dec. 14 by Judge Joseph Galati in North Vancouver provincial court. Galati also ordered that Sacramento serve 18 months of probation and be placed on the sexual offender registry.
The sentence follows a trial earlier this year where Sacramento was found guilty of sexual assault for grabbing a woman’s buttocks from behind as she walked along a trail in Lynn Valley.
The incident happened on Feb. 13, 2022. The victim, whose identity is protected by a court-ordered publication ban, testified in the trial she was walking over the small bridge exiting the Varley Loop Trail near Rice Lake Road when a stranger approached her from behind and grabbed her buttocks and genital area.
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.
North Vancouver RCMP later released an image of Sacramento’s face, hoping it would result in tips from the public. He was arrested in Abbotsford a month after the assault, after two witnesses identified him after seeing news reports about the incident.
In a victim impact statement read out to the court Nov. 27, the victim said while some people might dismiss the assault as a “grope,” the incident has left her with severe psychological harm including sleeplessness, agoraphobia, nightmares and hyper vigilance around men.
“She became fearful of hiking and being out in nature which had always been a significant part of her life,” Galati noted.
In a sentencing hearing last month, Crown counsel urged the judge to consider a term of three or four months of real imprisonment, while Sacramento’s defence lawyer asked for a conditional discharge, which would have avoided a criminal record, along with an exemption from the sex offender registry.
In handing down his sentence, Galati said the assault in the park “is at the low end of the continuum of sexual assault.”
The judge said he was satisfied that although Sacramento intentionally assaulted the woman, he did not intend to cause harm to her.
“But he was clearly reckless or wilfully blind to the possibility that harm would result,” he said.
The assault was aggravated by the fact Sacramento sexually assaulted a stranger in broad daylight in a public park, said the judge, and that the assault has had a significant impact or effect on the victim.
The judge rejected the defence lawyer’s request to let her client off without a criminal record, noting Sacramento continues to have limited insight into his actions and appropriate social behaviour.
In a psychiatric assessment, Sacramento said he had only lightly tapped the woman on the buttocks “as he was trying to pick her up,” the judge noted.
The judge added Sacramento also said, “’It’s not my fault if she was wearing revealing clothes’ and, ‘She probably would have liked it if she was younger.’”
The psychiatric report deemed Sacramento a moderate risk to re-offend.
A pre-sentence report pointed to Sacramento’s use of drugs and alcohol, starting when he was a teenager. He was previously diagnosed with substance-induced psychotic disorder but stopped taking his medication because he felt it was “suppressing his mental fortitude,” the judge noted.
Sacramento also described his use of cannabis as “pretty busy,” said the judge.
Sacramento told report writers he’d smoked two joints on the way to the park on the day of the assault and “was not in his right mind.”
Galati ordered Sacramento to obey a curfew between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. for the last three months of his conditional sentence.
Galati rejected Sacramento’s request to be exempted from the sex offender registry.
Sacramento was also sentenced for a gun offence of possessing a Glock handgun in a location where he was not permitted to have it. Galati said given Sacramento’s co-operation with authorities, a $200 fine was sufficient. The judge also ordered the gun and ammunition forfeited to the Crown.
