A self-described Montreal pastor who says a so-called marriage to a 10-year-old girl gave him the right to have sex with her has been found guilty of sexual assault. Daniel Cormier, 56, was convicted by Quebec court Judge Sylvie Durand on Wednesday after a five-year trial rife with legal wrangling. Cormier, who headed the now-defunct Church of Downtown Montreal and who once ran for mayor of Montreal, showed no emotion as Durand read her ruling in court, staying two other charges of sexual touching and invitation to touching.
The girl, who is now 19 but still cannot be identified, was seated at the back of the courtroom and listened to a translation of the verdict with her mother.
She testified during the trial that she was too young to grasp Cormier's plan for a married life together and denied ever entering any sort of union with him. But Durand noted she did recall much of the sexual abuse in stark, vivid detail.
"They were criminal acts that caused a lot of consequences to the victim, some measurable and others that's not possible for us to put into evidence," Crown prosecutor Anne-Andree Charette said outside the courtroom. "He stole her childhood from her and it is something I'll try to sum up for the court at the sentencing."
Durand told Cormier earlier this year his defence he was married to the girl wouldn't be accepted and she would not hear any testimony to that effect.
Cormier has steadfastly denied any wrongdoing or being a pedophile, saying he is simply lovestruck for the youngster he called his wife. Cormier still faces a pair of sex-related charges against a different 16-year-old girl in a trial scheduled to begin in January. He completely denies the allegations regarding the 16-year-old and says he did nothing illegal with the 10-year-old he claims to have married at a ceremony at his obscure evangelical church in 1999.
Cormier took the family under his wing starting in 1993, while he headed the church that catered to the marginalized. That's where he met the girl's mother, at the time a recovering junkie and prostitute, taking her and her two young daughters under his wing. The family described Cormier as a father figure who increasingly became a parental fixture in the girls' lives. The sisters frequently stayed with Cormier or vacationed with him and other church members.
It was during these moments that other church members began to grow suspicious of Cormier's relationship with the victim. Cormier was arrested in 2003 after a social worker alerted police about the situation involving the girl.
The case has snaked its way through the system in part because of legal wrangling and numerous motions filed by the Crown and Cormier, who represented himself.
The victim refused to testify in the same courtroom as Cormier, instead doing so via video link from an adjacent room. Cormier was barred from cross-examining the girl or her mother and turned down an offer to submit a predetermined list of questions.
Cormier rested without further witnesses or testifying himself. "He had no defence concerning the acts and the offences that he committed," said Charette.
A sentencing hearing is scheduled for late November and Charette has indicated she will seek prison time for Cormier.