A Sûreté du Québec (SQ) police officer from Abitibi is facing serious criminal charges. Agent Olivier Bazinet is notably accused of having strangled a woman during a sexual assault. Crimes that are not related to his duties as a police officer, according to the SQ.
Posted at 10:10 a.m.
The 26-year-old man appeared last February at the Senneterre courthouse and is due back in court next May. He faces five counts: sexual assault by choking the victim, assault by strangling the victim, death threats, assault and harassing communications. The maximum sentence is 14 years for the count of sexual assault.
The SQ police officer allegedly committed these crimes in August and September 2021 in Senneterre against the same victim, a woman whose identity is protected by the court. At the time, Agent Bazinet was working at the Senneterre post. However, at the time of his arrest last February, he had just been transferred to the MRC de Montcalm in Lanaudière.
Upon his appearance on February 18, 2022, the police officer was suspended with half pay at home, as stipulated in the collective agreement, indicated to The Press Lieutenant Benoît Richard, spokesperson for the SQ. The latter ensures that the crimes with which the accused is accused are “not at all” related to his duties with the provincial police.
“In this case, it is the SQ’s Professional Standards Department that investigated,” adds Lieutenant Richard.
Agent Bazinet has worked at the SQ since 2018.
In another sexual offense case, an SQ police officer accused four years ago will know his fate in court next June at the Lac-Mégantic courthouse. Officer André Charland of Candiac stood trial last fall on sexual assault charges against two minor victims. The crimes for which the 55-year-old man is accused date back to the 1980s, when he was not a police officer.