A man who took advantage of his job as a “nanny” to a family during the pandemic to sexually assault a vulnerable young boy was sentenced to six and a half years in prison on Monday.
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Rickey Belziles took advantage of his close relationship with the 13-year-old victim to abuse him.
The 62-year-old was initially hired as a “housekeeper” by the boy’s parents, but the closure of schools in March 2020 due to the pandemic had multiplied his duties at the family residence.
In the months that followed, the attacker and his young victim developed a close relationship, exchanging numerous text messages and talking about increasingly personal things.
In the winter of 2021, Belziles even offered to help the young boy with odd jobs in his building and used the curfew as an excuse to convince the parents to let the teenager sleep at his house.
“The child was entrusted, but even confined with his attacker,” observed Judge Mario Tremblay on Monday.
It was ultimately the youngster’s grandmother and a friend of hers who discovered the tenor of the relationship, which led to the filing of charges of luring, invitation to sexual touching, sexual interference and production of child pornography.
Major consequences
On Monday, during the sentencing, the victim’s mother held back tears on numerous occasions.
When Judge Mario Tremblay read one of the texts the defendant sent to the one he called “Baby love” and where he told the teenager he wanted to “fuck him”, the mother had to take a deep breath so as not to let the rage that inhabited him show through.
During sentencing submissions, the woman testified that her son, who lives with certain intellectual limitations, “needs adults to develop” but that since Belziles came into his life, he was not the same. .
“The consequences for the victim are major and their effect was well felt by the court,” assured Judge Tremblay, identifying the great vulnerability of the child in the aggravating consequences of the crime committed.
Odious
The magistrate also insisted on the duration and the number of acts committed by Rickey Belziles to justify the sentence of 6 and a half years of detention, however refusing to go into the detail of each of the attacks.
“It suffices to say that the anal penetration of a young boy whose development is comparable to that of a child of three or four years old is odious in itself”, hammered the judge Tremblay while throwing a heavy reproving glance towards the defendant, who remained impassive throughout the hearing.
The Crown Prosecutor, Mr.e Louis-Philippe Desjardins, had suggested a sentence of eight years in prison during the observations. He declared himself satisfied when he left the courtroom.
In defense, Mr.e Marie-Pier Bertrand had pleaded for a sentence of up to three years. His client had pleaded to be in love with the young boy and to have felt that it was an “egalitarian” relationship.
“No psychological factor could justify a more lenient sentence because he believed, even sincerely, to be in love with his victim and that the latter did not complain”, underlined the judge, adding that Belziles had rather acted “out of opportunism “.
In addition to the sentence he has five years and eight months left to serve, Rickey Belziles will have to submit to various conditions. In particular, he will be prohibited from being in a park or a school for 10 years, as well as from occupying a job that places him in a position of authority towards a teenager or from being within a radius of two kilometers from where he lives. his victim.