Jeffrey Bastien - Repeat Sex Offender - Civil Commitment Sought

In the past 15 years, repeat sex offender Jeffrey Bastien has had only one day of freedom.

The self-described “rape hound” has been on probation, in jail or in a psychiatric hospital for all but 24 hours of his adult life. Every time he is released from custody, he commits a new crime, often within hours.

At a hearing that began more than a year ago and resumed in Superior Court Monday, the Crown is applying to have Bastien declared a dangerous offender. The designation means Bastien would be handed an indefinite prison sentence to be reviewed once every seven years.

The dangerous offender application comes after Bastien was convicted in 2007 of sexually assaulting a high school girl in the Windsor apartment she shared with her mom. The girl managed to dial 911 after Bastien appeared in her doorway in his underwear in May 2006. The 911 operator recorded the violent attack and dispatched police who arrested Bastien within minutes, still in the girl’s home.

Monday’s hearing included having a 10-metre-long timeline of Bastien’s criminal history entered into evidence. The timeline, displayed in the courtroom like a giant piano roll, was produced by marrying Bastien’s criminal record with hospital and jail records. In a rainbow of overlapping colours, the timeline documents Bastien’s more than two-dozen convictions, including five increasingly violent attacks on complete strangers. Bastien has been on probation nine times and twice was deemed a high-risk offender.

Court has heard he fantasizes about raping women, including jail guards or any other woman whose path crosses his. He told police he had set a goal for himself of sexually assaulting 5,000 women.

Laurie Jacobs, a Windsor police officer who works in the special victims unit, was the lead investigator in Bastien’s latest crime. She testified Monday that she had to have a male detective familiar with Bastien interview him because Bastien was acting so “irrationally” in custody after attacking the teenaged girl.

“He was acting out sexually. He was masturbating continually in his cell,” Jacobs said.

Court heard Monday that Bastien, who turns 33 Saturday, at varying times in his incarceration, had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, anti-social personality disorder, substance abuse disorders and deviant sexual tendencies combined with a low IQ.

Defence lawyer Brian Dube described Bastien as being caught in a “vicious cycle” of refusing to take medication to treat his mental disorders because his mental disorders were preventing him from making rational decisions. Psychiatrist Wtaild Poplawski, one of several expert witnesses called to testify at Bastien’s hearing, agreed Monday with Dube’s description.

Poplawski noted Bastien has been called a “30 plus” on the scale used to assess risk to reoffend. “That is relatively rare,” Poplawski said. “That is a very high score.”

Throughout his hearing Monday Bastien sat picking at his forehead, pulling at his brush-cut hair and fussing with his lumberjack coat he wore in the stifling hot courtroom.

Bastien’s hearing continues Tuesday before Justice Terry Patterson.

"25% of all sex offenders re-offend within 15 years"
.........Sarah Tofte