Jeffrey Bastien - Repeat Sex Offender - Goal was to rape 5000 women

A self-described "occupational rape hound" whose goal was "to get 5,000 women," snickered openly as he watched his own police video statement played back in court Monday, during a hearing to determine if he will be declared a dangerous offender.

Jeffrey Bastien, 30, sat in the prisoner's dock laughing, on one occasion out loud, as he watched a video of the police interrogation he underwent in January 2001, after being arrested and charged with three separate sexual assaults on three different women that occurred within a 24-hour period at or around Casino Windsor.

"Because I don't really feel guilty," Bastien is heard telling Staff Sgt. Stephen Bodry, of the Windsor Police Service during a long session of questioning about his spree of attacks on the women, one of whom worked as a casino valet. "I don't feel good. I need help mentally to realize that there are other occupations than being a rape hound."

During the rest of the often rambling statement, which sounded as much like a protracted boast as it did a confession, the convicted sex offender is heard stating he had a goal of sexually assaulting 5,000 women and that he would have tried to "make it a fourth" that day had he not been caught.

At one point Monday, watching himself on television putting his feet up comfortably on the table in the police interview room after the officers had left the room, Bastien began laughing in court. It was only one of many strange moments in a hearing expected to last more than three weeks.

He is also heard yawning on several occasions during the tape as he describes how he "could have had a nice night if I wanted to" and how one of his victims "started screaming like I was Charles Manson" and how he threatened he would "punch her lights out" when one of the women protested.

He is heard mimicking the woman's cries of "Save me, why me? Oh Lord."

When asked by police what he expects will happen next Bastien replied. "You'll probably throw the book at me." Bodry comments, "I appreciate your frankness."

If declared a dangerous offender Bastien could face an indefinite prison sentence to be reviewed every seven years before parole could be considered. Bastien was convicted and spent three years in penitentiary for those 2001 attacks, which involved threats and varying degrees of violence, including groping the women and trying to put his hands inside their underwear. He admitted that, unsatisfied, he kept returning to the scene looking for more victims throughout the day.

The Windsor man, who suffers from mental illness, had previously been convicted for a robbery with violence in a casino parking lot in 1999, which involved him allegedly groping the female victim, though a charge of sexual assault was dropped in that case.

The case that spurred the Crown application for the dangerous offender classification relates to Bastien's conviction in January 2007 for a violent sexual attack on a local high school girl in May 2006, which only ended when the quick-thinking victim called 911 in the midst of the attack and had her ordeal taped by operators. Police were dispatched and arrived to take Bastien into custody within minutes.

Bastien had entered the unlocked door of the downtown apartment that the victim shared with her mother. The victim saw Bastien standing in the door in his underwear. He refused demands to leave and attacked her in the bedroom, where he threw her on the bed, struck her, groped her and threatened her before police arrived.

The former Casino Windsor valet who was attacked in Bastien's previous spree in 2001, told the court in her victim impact statement that she still lives in fear, seven years later, locking her car and home upon entering, unable to exercise outdoors alone.

She said he knew it was Bastien, the moment a friend pointed out the story of the young teenage victim in the Windsor Star in 2006.

"I knew it was him," she said. "By the article in the paper. I knew it was him and he was getting more violent ... The only thing he learned in prison was how to continue attacking women."

The first exhibit tendered before Superior Court Justice Terry Patterson was a graph that measured 10 metres long. It depicted a time line of Bastien's adult criminal record. That adult record shows about two-dozen offences, most for property crimes and breaches of court orders, but five involving violence.

In his opening statement, assistant Crown attorney Gary Nikota cited Bastien's "prodigious" criminal career.

"On Jan. 8, 2007, he was convicted of sexual assault causing bodily harm, break and enter to commit sexual assault and threats to cause death," said Nikota, of the attack on the then 15-year-old Grade 11 student. "He also has had a lengthy record of property and fail to comply convictions, sexual assaults, one robbery with sexual overtones and gratuitous acts of violence against women unknown to him."

Nikota said the hearing will involve the calling of 60 to 70 witnesses, including victims, medical and psychiatric experts and prison and probation officials.

But, in his cross-examination of the police detective, defence lawyer Brian Dube asked Bodry if the statements given by the victims of the 2001 casino sexual assaults showed the levels of violence that Bastien himself described in the tape. The officer allowed that they did not.

"It appears that from the beginning (Bastien) told you, as best he could, what happened," Dube added, suggesting his client had co-operated with the investigation fully.

"Yes."

"The things he said were quite unusual," said Dube.

"Unusual and disturbing," said Bodry.

The hearing continues today.