A local man serving seven years for sexual assault and facing more charges now, will face a dangerous offender hearing, prosecutors say.--IMAGE COURTESY MHPS
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A Medicine Hat man who police believe is a serial rapist will be the subject of a dangerous offender hearing, according to local Crown prosecutors.
Claudio Tovar-Aguilar was sentenced to seven years in prison last January on four counts of sexual assault, and has pleaded guilty to two separate charges of sexually assaulting a child.
Those charges are before the courts, and when that matter was called Thursday in Medicine Hat Provincial Court, Crown prosecutor Connor Doyle told the court the final steps before a dangerous offender declaration are being taken.
“We’re ready to proceed and the report is ready,” said Doyle while requesting an adjournment until later this month so the accused can arrange his defence.
Attorney Greg White told court he is in the advanced process of being noted as council of record for Tovar-Aguilar, who is incarcerated at Bowden Institution.
The declaration as a dangerous offender allows authorities to detain a prisoner for an indeterminate period of time.
If so determined by a judge, there would be no statutory release when a sentence runs its course, though parole hearings would proceed every two years after that point with the onus on the offender to prove he no longer poises a threat to re-offend.
The subject would remain under police supervision indefinitely.
Prosecutors can apply for the status to be applied with a person who receives a third conviction from crimes of a violent or sexual nature.
The dangerous offender hearing would proceed with Judge Gordon Krinke presiding since he is seized to the case.
In January, the News published exclusive details of the police investigation, which started in 2019 after two Good Samaritans called police after witnessing the suspect take an intoxicated women from a local bar to the parking lot of the Saamis Tepee.
Police say they found a “stupefying substance” made by Aguilar which incapacitated the woman.
Eventually pictures on his cellphone led police to believe other men were involved and other victims who police say were drugged but were unaware they had been assaulted.
Local investigators said evidence revealed a sophisticated system of predatory behaviour over a 10-year period and they believed more victims existed.
Seven women provided evidence in that case, which concluded with sentencing in early 2020 where prosecutors proceeded on four charges they felt had the strongest evidence to win conviction.
While awaiting sentencing, Tovar-Aguilar was charged with additional crimes by the Medicine Hat Police Service in 2021, including two counts each of sexual contact with a child and sexual counsel of a child – guilty pleas reflect one count of each – as well as two counts of sexual assault.
A publication ban is in place on the details of that case.
