A B.C. man who sexually assaulted a woman on a popular North Vancouver trail two years ago has been arrested again, and accused of breaking the conditions of his sentence.
Jairus-Paul Covacha Sacramento avoided jail time for the assault, and in December was handed a conditional sentence — the first three months of which were to be served under house arrest — along with 18 months of probation.
Court records show Sacramento is now facing four charges of breaching his conditional sentence order, with offences allegedly taking place in Maple Ridge on Jan. 3, 4, and 8, 2024.
It was not immediately clear what conditions of his release he had breached.
The assault happened on Feb. 13, 2022, while the victim — whose identity is protected by a publication ban — was walking on the Varley Trail, and alleged a stranger grabbed her.
In a video she shot of the suspect walking away, she can be heard shouting, “What makes you think it’s OK to smack me in the ass? Turn around!” The man responds by saying “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” and trying to knock the phone out of her hands.
Sacramento apologized for his actions in court on Nov. 27, but claimed the victim is “exaggerating what happened.” He was high on cannabis at the time of the assault and said he wasn’t in his “right mind.”
“It’s not even possible for me to touch her so aggressively in broad daylight,” Sacramento said, in part, during the sentencing hearing last month. “I don’t see why I’m actually being targeted so aggressively. The truth is I didn’t attack her at all … I literally just tapped her on the butt.”
At Sacramento’s sentencing hearing, the court heard a victim impact statement in which the woman described having nightly panic attacks, and was no longer comfortable alone in nature.
A pre-sentencing report described how Sacramento had intended to “pick up a woman” on his way home that day, and that he described the victim as “crazy,” engaged in victim-blaming, and suggested the victim would have liked it if she were younger and wearing revealing clothes.
Sacramento is due back in court on Jan. 17.
— with files from Elizabeth McSheffrey
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