Serial rapist Samuel Moderie, who was back in court Monday after pleading guilty to 24 charges in December, will undergo an assessment in the coming weeks to determine whether he should be declared a dangerous offender.
“There are reasonable grounds to believe that Samuel Moderie could be declared a dangerous offender or a long-term offender,” judge Pierre Dupras ruled in a decision rendered this Monday. This is the prosecutor on file, Mr.e Jérôme Laflamme, who requested it. The defense did not object.
Dubbed the “Tinder rapist,” Moderie tricked several women on dating apps into drugging them, sexually assaulting them and filming the act while they were unconscious. The 28-year-old man admitted his guilt a few months ago, in December, for criminal acts involving 13 women whom he raped, drugged or filmed without their knowledge.
In his decision, Judge Dupras insists on the fact that “sexual assault and the administration of soporific substances are serious personal injury”. Furthermore, the facts admitted during the guilty plea as well as Moderie’s criminal record justify such an assessment, adds the magistrate.
Moderie had in fact already been sentenced in 2019 to two years in prison for armed rape and acts of voyeurism, the victim of which was a woman close to him, whom he had also drugged with a sleeping pill and filmed during his attacks.
Two months delay
Everything indicates that it is the Philippe-Pinel National Institute of Forensic Psychiatry which will carry out this evaluation. The establishment has a maximum period of 60 days to do so. Samuel Moderie must return to court on August 6.
We do not yet know the sentence of the serial rapist. In Canada, when an individual is declared a “dangerous offender”, the court can in particular impose an “indeterminate” sentence in a penitentiary, or even combine the sentence with a “long-term” period of supervision which may be spread over a period of ten years.
Several of the women that Samuel Moderie drugged with benzodiazepines (anxiolytics sold in particular under the name of Xanax or Valium) had no memory of the attack. It was by viewing images recovered from Moderie’s cell phone and computer equipment that the investigators identified and eventually contacted some of his victims.
He often used the same modus operandi. He would first get dates with women through dating apps like Tinder, Badoo and JALF, then drug them by hiding the substance in alcohol or food.
Still detained since his arrest at the end of January 2023, the man generally attacked his victims at their home, staging scenes that he photographed and filmed with his phone while the women were unconscious. At least one of the attacks occurred while the disabled child of one of the victims was in the home.
With Tristan Péloquin, The Press