Victoria* experienced a “nightmare”. Stunned and weakened, she is trapped. A man sexually assaults her, while an accomplice holds her back. She begs them to stop. The complainant gave moving testimony Thursday at the trial of Stephan Probst, a medical specialist and professor at McGill University, accused of gang rape.
“I used all my strength. All. All. All my strength. Nothing was working. I was taken. I could not do anything. I could just wait for it to be over. After telling him four times to stop, I let go,” she said, her voice strangled, Thursday at the Montreal courthouse.
In the dock: Stephan Probst, a nuclear medicine specialist who now appears to practice in New York and who teaches at McGill University. He was previously head of the nuclear medicine department at the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal. His co-accused is Wendy Devera, a 30-year-old Montrealer. They are both charged with one count of sexual assault with the participation of another person.
Victoria meets Wendy Devera in 2020 on a dating site. The young artist lives with her boyfriend, but wants to have a sexual “experience” with a woman. In their exchanges, Wendy Devera invites him a few times to a friend’s penthouse. Victoria accepts, but insists she has no interest in another man.
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, THE PRESS
Wendy Devera
“I want to make sure I’m only coming for her.” Don’t let him get any ideas,” she says.
Before leaving, Victoria sips a beer at home and takes a “little puff” of cannabis oil vape to “relax”. “Nothing else,” she said. She arrives at Stephan Probst’s luxurious penthouse in downtown Montreal.
Stephan Probst prepares him a tequila drink with 7UP. Victoria plans to sip her drink all evening, since she never drinks much. She leaves her glass unattended for a few minutes. Stephan Probst told him he was a doctor at the Jewish General Hospital. The accused are acquaintances who have already slept together, she learns.
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, THE PRESS
Stephan Probst
While putting on her swimsuit, Victoria has sexual relations with Wendy Devera. In the spa, the complainant begins to feel “weird”. She feels a “big hot flash”. She then feels “losing control”, which never happens to her, she says. Suddenly, Stephan Probst is in the spa and gives her a “shot” of alcohol, which she drinks half.
“There were two girls and a guy in the spa. I do not like it. I’m afraid of where it’s going,” she says. She insists: she has “absolutely” no interest in Stephan Probst.
Still in the spa, Stephan Probst approached her, put a hand on the complainant’s leg and tried to kiss her. “I push him away immediately. I push him on the chest,” she describes.
Victoria has only one goal: to leave. She leaves the spa and tries to get dressed. “I’m losing my balance. My legs no longer want to go with my brain. I want to leave and I can’t. That scares me extremely,” she says. She even has to force herself to just pull up her pants, she mimes.
Wendy Devera arrives in the meantime and manages to reassure Victoria by kissing her. “I still feel dizzy,” she said. The accused brings him into the master bedroom. Victoria then begins to perform cunnilingus on the accused.
“Suddenly, I feel a foreign body enter me,” she says.
Stephan Probst takes the young woman by the hips and turns her towards her. “Wendy puts her hands on my left shoulder in a way that I don’t move,” describes the complainant. Weakened, she is unable to free herself from the influence.
“He’s coming into me. I’m in a funk. I will forever remember his face above me. At least four times, if not more, I tell them: “I don’t want to”, “I can’t. My legs were soft,” she testifies with emotion.
His testimony continues Thursday afternoon before Judge Suzanne Costom.
Me Delphine Mauger and Me Jérôme Laflamme represent the public prosecutor, while Me Valérie Riendeau defends the accused.
*Fictitious name to protect the identity of the complainant