A dangerous sex offender found not criminally responsible on account of his mental disorder in 2018 is set to walk away with a court discharge for harassing a student soon after his release. Marked for life, the victim accuses the authorities of having failed in their task.
Posted at 6:00 a.m.
“I often think of his victim getting off the bus and raped in a wood. I am the third victim… How many more victims of Adamo Bono does society need? “, insurgent Anastasia Boldireff, in tears, in a powerful testimony Monday at the courthouse of Montreal.
“Adamo Bono ruined my life,” summed up the doctoral student at Concordia University, as the accused pleaded guilty to a charge of criminal harassment two and a half years after his arrest.
PHOTO PATRICK SANFAÇON, THE PRESS
Anastasia Boldireff, victim, at the Montreal courthouse
The mental health of the accused is at the heart of this case. This is indeed a key element raised by lawyers to justify the imposition of a lenient sentence. A publication ban imposed by Judge Flavia K. Longo prevents us from reporting the extent of her mental health issues.
Adamo Bono was found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder in December 2018. The Montrealer sexually assaulted two women in 2016 and 2017, including a woman he had insistently arrested when he got off a bus on the Van Horne Ave. “He follows the victim, then he brings him by force to a place to make gestures of a sexual nature”, described the Police Department of the City of Montreal at the time.
Recidivist
In 2019, the recidivist rapist did not end up in a psychiatric institute, but rather with his parents, where his condition deteriorated. “The law does not apply to me since I did nothing,” Bono told his doctor in the following weeks, according to a decision by the Administrative Tribunal of Quebec (TAQ).
Adamo Bono does not understand the “unacceptability or inappropriateness of his behaviors towards women” and presents a “high risk of recurrence in the accusation or inappropriate behavior of a sexual nature”, underlines an October 2020 decision of the TAQ. Adamo Bono “can interpret a smile as an invitation,” his lawyer said Monday.
If the NCR had been enforced and supervised last time, I wouldn’t be here. Someone didn’t measure up [drop the ball] in the administration and supervision of Adamo Bono!
Anastasia Boldieff, following the hearing
In October 2019, the accused was working as a restaurant delivery boy when he started following Anastasia Boldireff in downtown Montreal. He compliments the young woman on her clothes and her smile. Even if she ignores him, Adamo Bono continues to follow her and invites her on a date, a ” dated “.
“How to turn this no into a yes? “, he launches, in English. Anastasia Boldieff refuses his advances.
“No means no”
A few days later, Adamo Bono bumps into her “completely by chance” in a downtown café. Insisting, the accused then tells her that he will not leave until she gives him her phone number. To get rid of him, the student gives him her number. After receiving two messages from the accused, she lodged a complaint with the police.
When she realizes through a web search that Adamo Bono is a dangerous sex offender, Anastasia Boldireff collapses to the ground. “I’ve never been so scared in my life,” she says. Terrorized, the student hastens to leave Montreal and then changes province, and even country. Job loss, nightmare, anxiety: she hasn’t been the same woman since.
After an outing in the media, Anastasia Boldireff felt “persecuted”. She claims to have received hundreds of derogatory messages. “For example: ‘It’s not like you were raped’, or ‘Oh, he just grabbed you.’ OK, he has “just”? No means no! This is the basis. If the word no has no value, then what society are we in? “No” is essential for women,” she said in an interview.
The lawyers suggested that the judge grant Adamo Bono a conditional discharge to allow him to avoid a criminal record.
Such a sentence, along with two years probation, will allow him to remain in a supervised residence, argued the defense lawyer.
“Society is protected by providing good follow-up to Mr. Bono,” pleaded Mr.and Maya Amar. Her client has also respected his “extremely strict” release conditions for two years, she added.
If Adamo Bono’s “mental state” deteriorated, he would also be “detained” at the Philippe-Pinel psychiatric institute, recalled Crown prosecutor Mand Khalid Alguima. The accused is in fact still followed by the Commission for the Review of Mental Disorders for his verdicts of not criminally responsible.
Judge Longo will deliver her decision on April 20.