R. v. Rahi, 2026 ONSC 413
ONTARIO
SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE
BETWEEN:
HIS MAJESTY THE KING
– and –
KALIB RAHI
Defendant
Susan Orlando and Ana Serban, for the Crown
Jocelyn Heaton, for the Defendant
HEARD: November 3, 6,7,10,12 – 14, 18-21, 24-25, 28, 2025, December 12, 2025
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT
SPIES J. (Orally)
INTRODUCTION
1Kalib Rahi stands charged with two counts of sexual assault, contrary to s. 271 of the Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-46 and four counts of human trafficking and sexual services offences contrary to ss. 279.01(1), 279.02(1), 286.3(1), and 286.4 of the Criminal Code, in relation to A.K. between October 1, 2016, and February 28, 2017. Mr. Rahi re-elected to a trial without a jury and pleaded not guilty to all charges. In closing submissions, the Crown invited an acquittal on Count 7, the charge of using an imitation handgun while threatening bodily harm or death to A.K. contrary to s. 85 (2)(a) of the Criminal Code.
2In 2023, a jury presided over by Nakatsuru J. found Mr. Rahi guilty of similar offences from a similar period (specifically a five-day period just before Canada Day weekend in 2017) in relation to K.H.
3Before I heard this trial, the Crown sought a ruling permitting her to put the transcript of K.H.'s evidence from the 2023 trial before the trial judge who would hear this trial as off-count similar fact evidence. It is the Crown’s position that the accounts of K.H. and A.K. demonstrate a very specific propensity on the part of Mr. Rahi to identify vulnerable women, capitalize upon their particular vulnerability, create a situation where the woman feels indebted to Mr. Rahi, isolate her, and demand repayment of the debt by having the woman work in the sex trade. The Crown’s position is that what takes this pattern from general to highly specific is Mr. Rahi's use of his dog breeding business to isolate the women. That application was granted by Roberts J. She concluded that assuming the foundation for her ruling remains, it will be for the trial judge to decide if all the evidence, considered together, supports the specific propensity or pattern she identified and if so, what, if any, significance it has in assessing the credibility and reliability of A.K.’s evidence: see R. v. Rahi, 2025 ONSC 4699.
4The Crown called A.K. and T.J. as witnesses. They both testified via Zoom1. Counsel also filed an extensive Agreed Statement of Facts (“ASF”) which eliminated the need to call many witnesses. In addition, an ASF was filed with the transcripts of the evidence of K.H. in the trial before Justice Nakatsuru, with an agreement that the transcripts contain the evidence that K.H. would give if called to testify in this trial. Counsel agreed that I can accept and rely on these transcripts without the Crown calling K.H. as a witness to testify viva voce in this trial. I commend both counsel for their cooperation in preparing the ASF. Mr. Rahi elected not to testify or call any Defence evidence.
5A.K.’s credibility and reliability are the central issues at trial. Defence counsel concedes that if her evidence is believed, it makes out the essential elements of the offences.
BACKGROUND EVIDENCE
Background of A.K.
6A.K. was born in Ontario and lived with her parents until the age of 13. She testified that she had a very traumatic childhood because of a lot of neglect in the home. As a result, she went into foster care and lived in multiple group homes. She only achieved a grade eight education and when she aged out of foster care, she moved to the GTA. In September 2016 A.K. was 21, homeless and living in shelters, having ended an abusive relationship with a boyfriend.
Relationship between T.J. and A.K.
7T.J. testified that A.K. is the daughter of a long-time friend of hers and that she was like an “auntie” to A.K. A.K. described T.J. as an aunt to her while she was growing up. A.K. confirmed that T.J. knew a lot of information about her and that they would talk about her issues.
Relationship between T.J. and Mr. Rahi
8T.J. testified that she has known Mr. Rahi since sometime around 2006 when they met on a dating site. Almost immediately Mr. Rahi became her partner in a dog breeding and rescue business. She ran the rescue operation, and he would give her puppies that she would care for and he would then sell. It is admitted that Mr. Rahi ran a dog breeding business before 2016 until the end of 2018 and that his business had an internet presence during this period.
9T.J. testified that she and Mr. Rahi were in a romantic relationship over the years she described as “on and off.” Mr. Rahi gave her a puppy she named Lava. According to T.J. the paperwork she had stated that Lava was a Cane Corso dog, namely a Mastiff, but Lava’s breed was an issue raised in her cross-examination.
Relationship between A.K. and Mr. Rahi in the fall of 2016
10A.K. met Mr. Rahi because of his relationship with T.J. A.K. recalled first meeting Mr. Rahi in 2014 when she was 19. He was introduced to her by T.J. as T.J.’s boyfriend. A.K. testified that she did not know much about Mr. Rahi, who she knew as Kal, save that he and T.J. were participating together in a dog breeding and selling business that included rescuing dogs. She said that she talked to Mr. Rahi a few times when he was staying with T.J.. She knows that they talked about the way she grew up and the struggles she was having but she could not recall the exact conversations. She told him what was going on in her life including her struggles with addiction, the fact that she did not have a lot of money and that she had broken up with a boyfriend. A.K. thought that Mr. Rahi was listening to her, and they got along well. She believed she could trust him, at least at first.
11According to T.J., Mr. Rahi always acted like he was an “uncle style male role model” to A.K. and she had the impression that Mr. Rahi wanted to help A.K. According to T.J., Mr. Rahi would talk to A.K. and joke around with her. He would also help A.K. out by giving her money or a ride here and there. As far as T.J. knew, A.K. liked and trusted Mr. Rahi. She did not see any “red flags” and was therefore not concerned with him staying with her when A.K. was there.
A.K. and Mr. Rahi come to stay with T.J. in September 2016
12T.J. lived in a triplex at 171 Bowie Avenue in Toronto. She rented the basement and for a couple of months starting in September 2016, she also rented the main floor.
13On September 28, 2016, A.K. was released on bail with no surety under the Bail Supervision Program and the release order required A.K. to reside with T.J. at T.J.’s home. A.K. was facing numerous charges dating back to February 12, 2017, in Newmarket. T.J. believed that A.K. had nowhere else to go and that A.K. wanted to get sober and get some help.
14Mr. Rahi was staying with T.J. when A.K. arrived to stay with her. Mr. Rahi had dogs with him.2 T.J. testified that she stayed in the basement with her dogs and A.K. and Mr. Rahi and his dogs stayed on the main floor. There was one bedroom on the main floor of the triplex and according to T.J., Mr. Rahi slept in that bedroom. A.K. slept on a bed that T.J. set up for her in the living room. A.K. did not have a clear memory of T.J.’s house and it was only after her memory was refreshed that she remembered that T.J. stayed in the basement, she stayed on the first floor and Mr. Rahi stayed in a different room.
15A.K. testified that she knew that T.J. was not going to let her have alcohol in the house while she was staying with her. She recalled Mr. Rahi telling her that he could get alcohol for her, but she did not take him up on this offer.
16A.K. recalled a couple of different conversations with Mr. Rahi while she was at T.J.’s residence. She testified that at this time the idea that she would work for Mr. Rahi for extra money came up. The work was to do with his dog breeding business and at some point, he also told her she could help his wife with babysitting. She recalled telling him that she loved being around animals and going on a couple of drives with Mr. Rahi to deliver puppies. This evidence was not challenged.
ADMISSIONS IN THE AGREED STATEMENT OF FACTS
17I will set out a few of the admitted facts her so the evidence of A.K. can be understood. I will come back to the ASF and the admitted documents to determine to what extent they corroborate her evidence.
Advertisements for sexual services
18It is admitted that in 2016 and 2017, Backpage.com (“Backpage”) was an online classified advertising service, the primary purpose of which was the advertisement and sale of sexual services. Backpage was shut down by law enforcement in 2018.
19It is admitted that during the investigation leading to these charges, police located two sets of advertisements for sexual services posted on Backpage and Eroticmugshots.com (“Eroticmugshots”) containing images of A.K. The first group of advertisements were posted from the same Backpage account between October 23 and November 13, 2016 (“Group 1”). Advertisements were also posted from the same Backpage account between April 3 and April 9, 2017. (“Group 2”).
20It is admitted that these advertisements were posted on the dates stated in the advertisement and that the content of the advertisements is what was visible on the Backpage and Eroticmugshots’ websites where the advertisements were posted.
21It is also admitted that none of the phone numbers included in the advertisements were registered to Mr. Rahi. The phone number associated to the advertisements in Group 2 was associated to A.K.
22I will review the Group 1 advertisements for sexual services in two subgroups, the first for the advertisements that were posted from October 23, 2016, up to and including October 31, 2016 (“Group 1A”), and the second for the advertisements posted between November 6 to 13, 2026 (“Group 1B”). I will then review the advertisements from Group 2, posted in April 2017.
23As I will come to, the evidence of A.K. in chief, and for the most part in cross-examination, was that it was after she and Mr. Rahi took Lava from T.J.’s home that they drove to Quebec and then to Mr. Rahi’s home in Drummondville. A.K. testified that that is when the alleged human trafficking began. The Crown made no attempt to have A.K. explain why there were advertisements of her providing sexual services on and before October 31, 2016, the day Lava was taken. The Crown also did not ask A.K. to explain the advertisements for sexual services that were posted in April 2017 using her phone number. In cross-examination Defence counsel did question A.K. about these advertisements posted on and before October 31, 2016, and in April 2017 in support of Mr. Rahi’s position that all the advertisements of sexual services were posted by A.K. without his involvement and that he did not assist in any way in her decision to start escorting.
Police investigation of cell phone records
24According to the ASF, Mr. Rahi and A.K. each had phones they were using during October and November 2016. Mr. Rahi’s number was 819-639-0734, and A.K.’s phone number was 647-641-3716 (the “active phone numbers”). In addition, they each had three different phone numbers associated to them during that period.
25Police obtained the cell phone records for the two active phone numbers of A.K and Mr. Rahi and the associated numbers for each of them but only for a 10-day period – October 30, 2016, to and including November 8, 2016. The records only show activity for the two active phone numbers.
26During this 10-day period there were 61 phone calls and 258 text messages between Mr. Rahi’s cell phone and A.K.’s cell phone using these known numbers. Ms. Heaton suggested that this does not mean Mr. Rahi was in possession of his cell phone but as the only other person with him during this period was A.K., she clearly would not have been using his phone to communicate with herself. I find that these calls and text messages clearly establish that in that time frame they were in constant communication with each other.
27The records include cell phone tower locations indicated by latitude and longitude. The ASF includes an affidavit sworn by a specialist from Rogers Communications Canada Inc. (“Rogers”) which was admitted for the truth of its contents. This affidavit explains the relationship between a cell tower and the geographical location of a cell phone. A criminal intelligence analyst with the Toronto Police Service analyzed all the cell phone records provided by Rogers for the two active phone numbers for A.K and Mr. Rahi. He mapped the locations of the cell sites that these phones used, and it is admitted in the ASF that those maps are accurate. None of the other phone numbers associated to either Mr. Rahi or A.K. used cell sites in Quebec during the time period October 30, 2016 to November 8, 2016.
THE EVIDENCE OF T.J. AND A.K.
28I will review the evidence of A.K in detail and review, to some extent, how it unfolded because that will assist in making my findings with respect to her credibility and reliability as a witness, which is the most important issue in this trial. T.J.’s credibility was also vigorously challenged by Defence counsel, and I will review it as well.
The alleged sexual assaults in the period when A.K. was staying with T.J.
Alleged sexual assault in the bedroom
29A.K. testified to two sexual assaults she alleges Mr. Rahi committed while they were both staying with T.J., one in the bedroom and one in the kitchen. A.K. believed about a week passed between the two assaults. She testified that the assault in the bedroom was first, but in cross-examination she did not recall saying that and said that she was “confused now” and that now she recalled it being after. Given the length of time that has passed I did not find this uncertainty over which alleged assault occurred first to be surprising.
30A.K. testified that she was in her bedroom lying on her bed, and Mr. Rahi came in and grabbed her by the waist and sexually assaulted her. She is not sure where T.J. was at the time. In cross-examination she said that there was no bed in this room, just a mattress on the floor, which is consistent with T.J.’s evidence of the bedroom on the main floor. When A.K. was asked for more detail in her evidence in chief, she testified that the assault involved vaginal intercourse with no condom. She was wearing clothes but could not recall what. She testified that Mr. Rahi “would have” pulled her clothing down. She did not recall him saying anything. It ended when he put his pants back on. A.K. testified that she did not have any alcohol or a memory of a bottle of Crown Royal at the time of this sexual assault that she could recall.
31A.K. testified that she was shocked and confused as Mr. Rahi was a friend. She did not tell anyone about what happened while she was at T.J.’s home. She did not want T.J. to find out because she did not believe T.J. would believe her that it was not consensual. T.J. was the only person she could stay with, and she had nowhere else to go.
32In cross-examination A.K. admitted that in her May 2018 statement she told police that in addition to the sexual assault in the kitchen, which I will address next, the other sexual assault happened in the basement. She responded to this inconsistency by stating that there was obviously some confusion about which room the assault occurred in, but the most important thing was that this assault happened. Given A.K.’s initial confusion about the layout of T.J.’s home, I did not find this inconsistency important.
Alleged sexual assault in the kitchen
33A.K. testified to another sexual assault that she alleges occurred on the main floor of T.J.’s residence. She referred to a space in between the kitchen and the living room and after her memory was refreshed referred to a tiny doorway from the kitchen into the living room. A.K. testified that she did not know if they were just talking but she and Mr. Rahi were in the same room. Mr. Rahi grabbed her back collar and pushed her over, so she was bent over with her hands behind her. He was holding her hands, and it felt like handcuffs. She could not get away. He pulled down her pants and had vaginal intercourse with her without a condom. She told him she did not want this. He did not do or say anything in response. She did not feel very good about it, and it just ended.
34A.K. testified that this sexual assault took place after she consumed half of a 26-ounce bottle of whisky that Mr. Rahi had brought – she said she probably drank 14 to 15 ounces. A.K. said that she had already consumed a couple of beers before drinking the whisky. A.K. testified that she had not asked Mr. Rahi for alcohol and that Mr. Rahi did not drink but was acting as if he was her friend.
35In cross-examination A.K. denied the suggestion that Mr. Rahi’s hands were on her face. She then admitted that she told police in her May 2018 statement that Mr. Rahi had his hands over her face when he started having sex with her in the kitchen. A.K. admitted that she could have been getting the two sexual assaults mixed up and said that she has spent time trying to forget about these assaults. When it was put to her that this sexual assault in the kitchen never happened, A.K. responded that she knows what happened. She was then asked what she was wearing, and she answered that she had no idea, and she could not say if it was pants or a skirt. She testified that she blocked this out “which is what you do when horrible things happen to you”.
36A.K. was then reminded by Defence counsel that in her evidence in chief she had testified that Mr. Rahi had pulled down her “pants”. A.K. said this was just a general term referring to “bottoms” and not a reference to long pants. When she could not remember more, Defence counsel attempted to refresh A.K.’s memory from her May 2018 statement when she told police she was in shorts and Mr. Rahi was in pants. A.K. then testified that she still did not remember what she was wearing at that time, especially all these years later3. At this point A.K. became quite upset and began crying as she explained it was not easy to remember and that Defence counsel was “making it seem like none of this stuff happened” and this was “really really upsetting me because you were not there. You can defend someone who ruined my life and say what you want to say but I was there and know what happened”. When this was revisited after a break, A.K. testified that she had no reason to lie to the police, so she “guessed” she was in shorts and believes that to be true, but she did not remember. She added that she remembered Mr. Rahi putting his hands on her and sexually assaulting her.
37When asked in cross-examination, A.K. did not remember if Mr. Rahi wore a condom or ejaculated at this time. When it was put to her that she said he had not worn one in her evidence in chief A.K. responded that she did not remember that and that she was a “little overwhelmed right now”. As she had been under cross-examination for over an hour at this point, I granted the Crown’s request for a short recess. When we returned A.K. stated that Mr. Rahi was not wearing a condom. Later in cross-examination Defence counsel took A.K. to her May 2018 statement where she told police that Mr. Rahi had ejaculated during this sexual assault. When asked again if Mr. Rahi ejaculated, she testified that she was being sexually assaulted at the time and that she had spent all these years trying to forget and that she was sorry if she did not remember if “he pleased himself in that event”.
38Defence counsel put to A.K. that even important things can degrade in memory over time, and she was asked why she did not have a memory at trial of whether Mr. Rahi ejaculated. A.K. responded that she will never forget what Mr. Rahi did to her but at this time she did not recall if he ejaculated. She agreed that since it was what she told police it was true. The fact that she did not simply state that her memory was refreshed notwithstanding all these questions demonstrated to this Court that she was doing her best to be an honest witness. I also found that A.K.’s inability to remember this detail was not surprising.
39According to A.K., T.J. was in the residence at the time, but she could not remember exactly if T.J. walked in and saw it or not, but somehow, she found out about this assault in the kitchen. A.K. testified that there are certain parts that she can’t remember. She did not tell T.J. about the assault or that the assault was not consensual because she did not think T.J. would believe her. In cross-examination A.K. was taken to her August 2018 statement to police. She admitted that she told police at that time that T.J. “walked in on something” when Mr. Rahi had her bent over.
40A.K. confirmed her evidence in chief that T.J. did not know this was non-consensual and that T.J. was really mad when she walked in. A.K. believed that T.J. thought it was a “mutual thing” and that T.J. did not know that she had been sexually assaulted. She couldn’t say when in relation to this assault she was kicked out, but she did testify that it was one of the major reasons T.J. kicked them out. When A.K. was asked why she did not tell T.J. that the sexual assault was not consensual once she knew she was being kicked out, she said she had nowhere to go and then Mr. Rahi would know she told her.
41In cross-examination, after examining A.K. at length about the sexual assault she alleges happened in the kitchen, Defence counsel reminded A.K. that she alleged a sexual assault in her bedroom and asked A.K. if this assault was before or after the assault in the kitchen. A.K. responded that she didn’t know “right now,” that she was very overwhelmed and emotional and that it was hard to “even think in my head right now”. When asked if she could concentrate on Defence counsel’s questions and answer right now, A.K. responded that:
It’s not about concentrating on the question, but about you [Defence counsel] sitting there trying to tell me something didn’t happen that happened. It’s the fact that every day I go through this shit, and you know for you sit here, you know to tell me something didn’t happen to me that I live with daily is very upsetting, and you know and yeah there’s times I get confused you know and I get confused on what happened, when it happened because you know it wasn’t fair what he did to me, and I have to deal with that for the rest of my life and you know stuff gets confusing because it just gets confusing because it happened so long ago. I have spent so much time trying to heal from it and trying to get better.
The evidence of T.J.
42T.J. described an incident where she came upstairs and walked into the bedroom on the main floor unannounced. As she opened the door, she testified that it seemed to her like Mr. Rahi had been on top of A.K. when he “jumped off her” and that he was putting himself back in his place. They both seemed very surprised. Mr. Rahi had his shirt off. A.K. was clothed. They were sitting side by side with no space between them on a matt on the floor that was used as a mattress. T.J. saw a bottle of rye on the floor that was almost empty – she was not sure how much was left in the bottle of rye.
43When T.J. asked them what they were doing, they were both very dismissive. A.K. was talking back to her, asking her what she was doing and why she had this “killing the party” attitude. A.K. was saying things like “who was she to judge her?”, and Mr. Rahi was backing her up. When A.K. started repeating things to T.J. that Mr. Rahi used to say to her, like she was making her own “personal choices,” T.J. testified that she realized that he was trying to turn A.K. against her and that he was not there to help A.K.
44T.J. described AK.’s state as being “severely under the influence.” She was acting like her “typical drunk self.” At this time to T.J.’s knowledge Mr. Rahi did not drink alcohol and he was not intoxicated.
45At this time T.J. was more upset with the fact A.K. had been drinking. It did not occur to her then that anything else was going on. She told A.K. to go to bed as they needed to go to work in the morning.
46In cross-examination T.J. confirmed that she did not see Mr. Rahi and the complainant engaging in any sexual conduct when she walked unannounced into the bedroom. She believes however that they would have heard her coming through the door.
47In cross-examination T.J. was taken to her October 2018 statement where she told police that she was under the "impression" that there was some “kind of sexual…happening, going on, but I was not sure how to take it…I know that I walked in one night and that I seen him jump off of her and she was off her face, like on drugs and alcohol, I'm really not sure." After this passage was read to her T.J. said she did not recall saying something sexual was happening and admitted that it did not dawn on her in the moment that there may have been a sexual relationship. She added however that if that is what she thought at the time it has been seven years since she gave that evidence. She also had a lot of personal things going on in her life at the time, as she had to put all her dogs down, which was on her mind and as a result she had been drinking a lot as well.4
A.K. and Mr. Rahi are kicked out of T.J.’s home
48T.J. testified that she did not decide to tell A.K. and Mr. Rahi to leave her home until the morning after she found A.K. and Mr. Rahi together in the bedroom and she realized that A.K. had been drinking. T.J. described a big fight the next morning about A.K. still being intoxicated, being disrespectful, not following rules, and ultimately feeling that Mr. Rahi turned A.K. against her, resulting in her decision to tell them both that they had to leave which they did. In cross-examination T.J. confirmed that her decision to kick them both out had nothing to do with what happened the night before. At this point she did not think that Mr. Rahi was a “criminal mastermind”. When asked if she thought that Mr. Rahi should be in jail T.J. responded with a question to Defence counsel asking whether she thought he should be.
49Although what exactly led to T.J.’s decision is not clear, T.J.’s evidence that she asked both A.K. and Mr. Rahi to leave her home, that they left at the same time, and that once A.K. and Mr. Rahi left, they did not return to live with T.J. was not challenged.
50A.K. testified that when this happened, she was worried as she had no options for a place to live and no money. She had a conversation with Mr. Rahi while they were still inside T.J.’s home, and he asked her if she needed a place to stay. She told him that she did and that she had nowhere to go. Mr. Rahi told her he could help her, that she could help him with the dog breeding business, and he would pay her for this. He also mentioned his wife needed help with the children at his home in Quebec. They also talked about her bail situation and A.K. told Mr. Rahi that she was using T.J.’s place as an address for bail. A.K. testified she told Mr. Rahi that she thought that a bench warrant would be issued for her arrest. She could not remember if he said anything in response. A.K. left with Mr. Rahi in his car. This evidence was not challenged.
51There is very little evidence about what happened in the first few days after A.K. and Mr. Rahi left T.J.’s home, from the time A.K. and Mr. Rahi were kicked out of T.J.’s home until Lava was taken, but certainly some time passed. A.K. testified in her evidence in chief that she believes that Lava was taken about a week after she and Mr. Rahi were kicked out of T.J.’s home. She then said it was a day or two. When asked if she was sure, A.K. said it was a long time ago and she was doing her best to remember. After her memory was refreshed by Crown counsel, A.K. testified that about a week had passed from the time they were kicked out of T.J.’s home to when they stole Lava. T.J. testified it was a few days.
52A.K. testified that during this time, they slept in Mr. Rahi’s car and stayed in Ontario. She had no other recollection about what they were doing during that week. A.K. did not believe they drove anywhere specifically in Toronto. They just drove around and had discussions about Mr. Rahi needing help in Quebec. Mr. Rahi told her that if she went with him, she would at least be out of the province. She thought she would be arrested and so she needed to get out of Ontario. A.K. recalled that they stayed in the car for a day, and she slept in the passenger seat while Mr. Rahi slept in the driver’s seat.
The alleged theft of Lava
53T.J. testified that a few days after she kicked both A.K. and Mr. Rahi out of her home, she had to leave her home for an errand. She believes that she must have made up with Mr. Rahi because he had agreed to help her by walking the dogs while she was out. T.J. believes that Mr. Rahi had a key to the main floor already and she let him know where the key to the basement was. She trusted him to take care of the dogs for a couple of hours.
54T.J. testified that while she was out, she received a text from Mr. Rahi to say that he was not going to walk the dogs and that he was going to Quebec. When T.J. received this text, she did not arrange for anyone else to do so. No one else had the key to her home or to the basement. When T.J. got home, she found that Lava, was missing. She remains convinced that Mr. Rahi stole Lava and she called police. T.J. never got Lava back and testified that she never received any information from Mr. Rahi as to what happened to her dog. It is admitted that police concluded that there was no evidence to support that Lava was in Mr. Rahi’s possession.
55There is no admission that Lava was in fact taken, let alone by Mr. Rahi. However, T.J.’s evidence that Lava was taken and that she believed Lava was stolen by Mr. Rahi was not challenged. In fact, as I will come to, the fact Lava was taken, and T.J. believes it was Mr. Rahi who took her is the crux of the defence argument as to why T.J. had a motive to lie in court and should not be believed. When A.K. was cross-examined, it was put to her that in fact she and Mr. Rahi did not take Lava at all. To this A.K. responded that that was impossible. When it was suggested that in fact, they took an eight week old pit bull puppy, A.K. reiterated that they took Lava to Quebec. She remembered them taking Lava, and she remembered putting Lava in the car and driving with Lava in the car to Quebec.
56Although police did not charge either A.K. or Mr. Rahi with the theft, I am going to proceed on the basis that Lava was taken at some point by them and then driven to Quebec. I have not drawn any adverse inference against Mr. Rahi because of the allegation by T.J. and A.K. that he is the one who took Lava. This allegation is only important to the extent it informs the narrative of T.J. and A.K.’s evidence, and in the case of T.J., whether she has a motive to get revenge against Mr. Rahi. In addition, Defence counsel relies on several inconsistencies in the evidence of A.K. as to who took Lava and what happened to Lava in support of her arguments that A.K. was not a credible and reliable witness.
57It is important to my analysis to determine when it was that T.J. alleges Lava was taken. When T.J. testified in chief, the Crown led on this point, without objection, providing her with the date of October 31, 2016, which she accepted. In the ASF it is agreed that T.J. called the police to report the theft of Lava on October 31, 2016. It is also agreed that she told the police the dog had been taken from her that day. That is a hearsay statement, and I cannot rely upon it for its truth. However, the fact T.J. called police on October 31, 2016, does suggest that is the day she alleges when Lava was taken from her, if T.J. called police right away, which is a reasonable assumption. Since as between counsel there is agreement that October 31, 2016, was the date when T.J. alleges Lava was taken, I will accept that as the correct date.
58When asked why they took Lava, A.K. said that Mr. Rahi was frustrated about being kicked out and that he and T.J. had had issues at the time from sharing the money from the sale of puppies. Later in her cross-examination A.K. added that Mr. Rahi also gave as a reason for taking Lava that T.J. kept Lava in a crate all day when she was out cleaning houses. A.K. also testified that at the time Mr. Rahi was under the impression that Lava was pregnant and that he mentioned the idea of taking Lava and selling the puppies to her. When it was pointed out that it then would not make sense to immediately give Lava away, A.K. testified that Lava wasn’t in fact pregnant and that she did not think the plan was to ever keep Lava.
59At trial A.K. testified that when they went to T.J.’s home, Mr. Rahi went in and grabbed Lava and brought Lava to the car while she stayed in the car. Mr. Rahi grabbed a leash and some food for Lava. A.K. testified that they were going to take Lava to Quebec, and she was going to help Mr. Rahi with the kennels and babysitting. A.K. admitted that she agreed to do those things and travel to Quebec with Mr. Rahi. A.K. testified that she did not say anything to Mr. Rahi about the fact that he took Lava even though she felt badly for T.J. as she knew Lava was her dog. She needed a place to go to and so she went along with it. She did not feel she had any other options. At this point she started trusting Mr. Rahi again because he was trying to help her with a place to stay.
60T.J. testified that after Lava was taken, she was in constant contact by phone with Mr. Rahi and A.K. to get Lava back. She believed they were together at that time and provided, as an example of how she knew this, that when she told Mr. Rahi she was going to commit suicide, A.K. called her to persuade her not to do so.
The drive to Quebec with Lava and the alleged sexual assault
61According to A.K. after they took Lava they drove to Quebec. On the way they stopped at a rest stop in Whitby. In cross-examination A.K. agreed that the stop could have been in Bowmanville or Port Hope because she just remembers the general area. In my view the exact location does not matter.
62A.K. testified that while they were stopped Mr. Rahi asked her to give him a blowjob. She did not want to but did not feel she could say no because he was trying to help her so much and she was relying on him to feed her and give her a place to stay. She did not know where else to go or what to do and so she just did it. After her memory was refreshed A.K. testified that Mr. Rahi told her that if she did not give him a blowjob, he would leave her there in the middle of nowhere and she would be murdered. That scared her and so she gave him a blowjob while he was driving. He ejaculated in her mouth, and she spit it out on the floor of the car. They then continued their trip to Quebec. In cross-examination A.K. testified that this was the only time on this road trip that she recalls an incident of forced oral sex.
63In cross-examination A.K. was taken to a passage from her May 2018 statement. It was suggested that she told police that she gave Mr. Rahi a blow job while they were stopped. A.K. denied that is what she told police. The defence relies on this as an example of A.K. trying to wiggle out of an inconsistency but, I agree with A.K. that that is not what she said. A.K. did not mention or volunteer the fact that the forced fellatio occurred while the car was moving when she told police about this. However, when it happened was not clarified in that statement and she was not asked that question. A.K. was firm in her evidence at trial that she gave Mr. Rahi a blow job while he was driving. I do not find that A.K.’s statement to police on this point or this exchange in cross-examination adversely impacts on her credibility.
64In A.K.’s February 2017 statement A.K. told police that they stopped in Bowmanville to get gas, and she did not tell police about this alleged incident of forced oral sex. However, police did not ask any details about this stop and when this omission was put to her at trial, A.K. explained that she was not asked, that she did not volunteer this information and that she did not tell the officer everything at that time. I note A.K. did not tell police about the alleged sexual assaults while at T.J.’s house or the alleged sex trafficking until her May 2018 statement.
65A.K. had no recollection of anyone calling them while they were driving to Quebec but after her memory was refreshed, she recalled that Ms. J. called Mr. Rahi, and their conversation was on the car speaker. T.J. accused Mr. Rahi of taking Lava and asked Mr. Rahi where Lava was. T.J. told Mr. Rahi that she had called the police. Mr. Rahi told T.J. that he did not know where Lava was. A.K. testified that she also heard the conversation when police called Mr. Rahi about Lava and asked him where Lava was, and he said he did not know. After her memory was refreshed A.K. also recalled that Mr. Rahi phoned someone about bringing Lava to him and that this person wanted to buy Lava.
A.K.’s cell phones and the phone numbers she used in October and November 2016
66As I have stated, the phone records show that A.K. had a cell phone and used it in the period from October 31 to November 5, 2016. There were apparent inconsistencies in A.K.’s evidence about her ability to use her phone and about who threw a cell phone out a car window. A great deal of time was spent cross-examining A.K. on this topic and it was covered at different times during her cross-examination which caused some confusion. Some of the confusion came from the fact that A.K. testified she threw her own phone out the car window and she alleges Mr. Rahi threw another phone he gave her out the car window.
67A.K. testified that while she did have a cellphone, she was not allowed to use it when she wanted to. Mr. Rahi monitored her calls and would sit there and listen to them. His rule was that she was not to call anyone and tell anyone what they were doing. A.K. also testified that she did not remember if she made calls or not and that it could be that she was not allowed to make calls; she could not remember. A.K. testified in cross-examination that on the initial road trip to Quebec, Mr. Rahi monitored her calls, but he did not take her phone. She was taken to her May 2018 statement where she told police that on the way to Quebec, she was not allowed to use the phone, and she got rid of her phone and threw it out the window. When Defence counsel put to A.K. that there are phone records for her phone that show calls and texts being made between October 31 to early November 2016 bouncing off phone towers on the way to Quebec, A.K. testified that she did not recall making any calls on the way to Quebec but she admitted that it would not surprise her if the phone records showed that she did – it was just that she did not remember them.
68A.K. did testify that she remembered contacting George5 on that “first road trip to Quebec” and that she also called her mother in Kingston. This was when she was still under the impression she was going to Quebec to babysit and help with the puppies. She was then taken to her May 2018 statement where she told police that “that night on the way to Quebec” on the day when Lava was stolen, she was not allowed to use her phone. To this A.K. testified that she was not allowed to use her phone once they got to Quebec and by the reference to nighttime she must have been referring to right before they got to Mr. Rahi’s house in Drummondville.
69I accept that A.K.’s statement to police that she was not able to use her phone on the way to Quebec was not true, but I find this was not a deliberate lie, given how readily A.K. admitted to making calls on the way to Quebec once her memory was refreshed. Given the time that has passed, this is a detail that she may have legitimately forgotten, as she said in her evidence.
70Defence counsel also submits that although A.K. maintained that she was not allowed to use her phone once they were in Quebec, this is contradicted by the phone records which show there was not only usage on the road trip to Quebec on Oct 31, 2016, but also throughout the next ten days for which we have records. However, as I have said, A.K. testified she could not use her phone when she wanted to, and that Mr. Rahi monitored her calls to make sure she did not call anyone and tell anyone what they were doing. She also testified that she had to sneak out of the hotel room and beg people for money so she could get away from Mr. Rahi. I therefore do not see this as a significant inconsistency in A.K.’s evidence.
71I also do not find that A.K. was deliberately lying to police about the fact a phone was thrown out of a car window, particularly given that she says this happened twice. In cross-examination A.K. testified that when Mr. Rahi threw her phone out the window, that was not on their first drive to Quebec. She was taken to her May 2018 statement where she told police that she was the one who threw her phone out the window and that she did so on the way “out of Quebec”. A.K. responded that she had multiple phones at that time. She admits that she had one phone “in her name” that she threw out the car window. In re-examination when asked why, A.K. testified that Mr. Rahi told her that because she had a warrant for her arrest that if she had a working phone, the police could track it. It makes sense that the phone A.K. had when she was with T.J. would have been disposed of since A.K. believed there would be a warrant out for her arrest. I do not know what the number for that phone was.
72A.K. testified that Mr. Rahi then gave her a cell phone. She testified that on one occasion Mr. Rahi saw that she had called her mother, or she was trying to call her mother while they were in the car, she could not remember which, but he freaked out and grabbed her phone and threw it out of the window. She recalls Mr. Rahi was yelling at her asking why she was calling her mother and what was she trying to do. A.K. testified that this occurred after the time when she threw her phone out the window. She could not say where they were except that it was in Ontario. She disagreed with the suggestion that she never told police that Mr. Rahi threw any phone out the window.
73A.K. was cross-examined on her February 2017 statement in which she told police that she was the one who threw the phone out of the window and smashed it. A.K. testified that she did not remember making this statement. There was no agreement between counsel that this portion of the transcript was accurate and so there is no proof of this prior statement. In any event, presuming that she did tell police this, A.K. testified that she does not know why she said it. She guessed it was because she was afraid to tell police about Mr. Rahi’s involvement and this statement was before she told police about her allegations of human trafficking. In my view it could also be that she was thinking of her cell phone when she gave this statement and was talking about when she threw it out of the car window.
74Defence counsel submitted that A.K. lied to police in her February 2017 statement by telling police that she threw her phone out the window on the way to Quebec given the phone records show that she did in fact have phone usage on her device, contrary to her statement that she was not allowed to use her phone. I do not accept that this statement was a lie as I have already found it likely that A.K. did throw her phone out the car window on the way to Quebec given her concern about being arrested. As I have already said I do not know what the number for that phone might have been. The phone records we do have could be for the phone A.K. said Mr. Rahi gave her afterwards.
A.K. and Mr. Rahi go to his home in Quebec
75A.K. testified that once they arrived in Quebec, they went to Mr. Rahi’s house, which she described as a farmhouse close to the road on a huge property. The ASF states that Mr. Rahi had a house in Drummondville in September 2017 when police attended and spoke to his wife.
76A.K. testified that when they arrived at Mr. Rahi’s home, she met his wife and a young daughter who she believes was about two years old. Mr. Rahi’s wife was pregnant and was showing. A.K. testified that Mr. Rahi’s wife freaked out about Lava and was yelling about the fact that Lava was “T.’s dog”, and this would get the family in trouble.
77Mr. Rahi had a dog breeding business going on inside his house and there were a number of kennels in the basement. A.K. saw over ten dogs all of different breeds. Mr. Rahi also had his own personal dog which travelled around with him6.
78After they arrived A.K. testified that she helped clean some of the kennels. Mr. Rahi did not pay her for her help. A.K. said that after first arriving in Quebec, she stayed at Mr. Rahi’s house for at least one night and there could have been more. She recalled two days there.
79A.K. testified that she went with Mr. Rahi when they brought Lava to someone’s home in Quebec where they left the dog. In cross-examination A.K. testified that she has no idea how long Lava was at Mr. Rahi’s house, but Mr. Rahi’s wife did tell him to get Lava out of the house because Lava was T.J.’s dog.
Shopping for lingerie
80A.K. testified that after dropping Lava off that Mr. Rahi took her shopping and bought her pieces of lingerie and high heels that he paid for, and he also purchased condoms. After the shopping, while they were in Mr. Rahi’s car, A.K. testified that he used his cellphone to go to a website called Backpage. A.K. testified that before getting to Quebec with Mr. Rahi and Lava that she had never heard about Backpage before.
81A.K. testified that Mr. Rahi showed her pictures of different women in lingerie. He explained the advertisements were for escorting. She was not sure what escorting meant but he said it meant offering sexual services. Mr. Rahi told her that he had done this with other girls as a way to make money. A.K. testified she had never experienced that before and was not sure what it entailed. She felt Mr. Rahi was hinting that she could help him make some money but at this time he did not ask her if she actually wanted to do anything with respect to Backpage. She still understood she was going to stay at his place, and she would help him with the kennels and babysitting. After this discussion about Backpage they went back to Mr. Rahi’s home.
The photos of A.K. in lingerie
82Once they were back at Mr. Rahi’s home, A.K. testified that his wife explained to her how she used to be an escort and that she would take some pictures of A.K. wearing the lingerie that Mr. Rahi had purchased. A.K. testified that Mr. Rahi then told her that he was “stuck in Quebec” and would not be able to make money delivering puppies and so escorting was a way for her to make some money and for him to make some money as well. When asked why Mr. Rahi was stuck in Quebec, I did not understand A.K.’s answer but she could not remember if it had anything to do with her.
83A.K. testified that it made her more comfortable to have these pictures taken by a woman. Mr. Rahi’s wife showed her various positions to be in when she took the pictures. She did not see the pictures at that time.
84In her evidence in chief A.K. was shown the documents with pictures of multiple women. It is agreed that these photographs were part of advertisements posted on Backpage and Eroticmugshots although A.K. was not shown the accompanying text. She testified that she was in each of them. There are photographs of women that A.K. did not recognize, specifically the face of a black woman, a woman wearing a Nike sports bra and a woman in a short black dress in high heeled black shoes that are different than the ones A.K. is wearing in the photographs.
85Most of the photographs of A.K. show her wearing red lingerie which A.K. said was purchased when the shoes were purchased. There is a picture of her lying on a bed and standing up against a wall. In cross-examination A.K. testified that the photos were taken after she and Mr. Rahi were kicked out of T.J.’s house, and they took Lava to his house in Drummondville. That was the first time she found out about Backpage.
86A.K. also identified herself in the other photographs where she is wearing black lingerie. In her evidence in chief A.K. testified these photographs were taken at a different time, but she could not recall when. In cross-examination A.K. remembered that the photographs of her wearing red lingerie were taken by Mr. Rahi’s wife at his house. She testified again that photos with black lingerie were taken at a different time but did not remember exactly where the photographs of the black lingerie were taken. A.K. testified that the photographs with red lingerie stuck out to her because that is when “this all started”.
87There was a great deal of cross-examination of A.K. on differences in her hair between the photographs of her in red lingerie versus black lingerie in an effort to show that there had been multiple photo shoots. A.K. admitted in cross-examination that the pictures where her hair is straight were not taken on the day of the pictures of her in red lingerie where her hair is curly although she did not remember a photo shoot where her hair was straight. Although Defence counsel asked her to testify about what she recalled, A.K. was clearly basing her evidence on what she could see about how her hair was done and at one point A.K. even agreed that there must have been three different photo shoots.
88A.K. was taken to her August 2018 statement in cross-examination where she told police that all the pictures of her in red lingerie were taken at the same time, that they never took new pictures and that her hair was straightened for the pictures of her in the red lingerie. In cross-examination she admitted that there might have been some confusion, and she was mixed up when she said her hair in the red lingerie was straightened and not in a ponytail. In re-examination A.K. testified that when she did the duo, an event I will come to, the other woman straightened her hair. A.K. said that she could not recall if her hair was also straightened the first night when the photos of her in red lingerie were taken.
89Later in her cross-examination while A.K. was being shown photographs of her in black lingerie she testified that she now remembered where they were taken. She noticed that the wall in a photograph where she is wearing black lingerie is the same as the wall in a photograph where she is wearing red lingerie and she testified that the photographs were in fact taken at the same time. A.K. pointed out as well that in one of the photographs of her in black lingerie lying on a bed that she was wearing socks. In re-examination A.K. was asked what she remembered about the socks, and she testified that her feet were wet when she got to Mr. Rahi’s house, and she remembered those socks being given to her by Mr. Rahi’s wife. She remembered them specifically because they were long socks, and she was not used to wearing long socks and thought they looked funny. It was clear to me when A.K. gave this evidence she had a specific memory of these photographs being taken once she noticed the socks and as a result, she testified that she now remembered that this happened the same day the photos of her in the red lingerie were taken. A.K. then testified that all the photos were taken the same day. She does not remember any other photo shoot. If she said earlier that there might have been more than one, she testified it might have been her trying to make sense of the different photos. She then asked Defence counsel why it mattered because the photos were taken, and Mr. Rahi posted them on Backpage.
90It was put to A.K. in cross-examination that the real reason for the inconsistency in her evidence was that some of the pictures she identified as being of her were not in fact of her. A.K. responded that these photographs were obviously of her, and she recalled them being taken.7 It was then put to her that if the pictures were all of her that there obviously must have been more than one photo shoot. To this A.K. testified that she could not say 100% or not that there was more than one photo shoot. She only remembered one photo shoot, but she also recalled the one photo of her wearing black lingerie being taken on the same day as those of her in red lingerie and she specifically remembered being on the bed wearing the socks.
A.K.’s evidence about providing sexual services for Mr. Rahi
Purchase of bitcoin and preparing the advertisement for sexual services
91A.K. testified that after the photographs of her in lingerie were taken, she and Mr. Rahi went on a drive and stopped at a convenience store in Montreal. She could see him putting money into a machine and he told her that it was a Bitcoin machine. He did not tell her why he did this. When he came back to the car, he said the “money is online”. She did not understand what that meant. While they were in the car Mr. Rahi started typing an advertisement for Backpage on one of his phones. He told her what he was doing, and although he did not show her the advertisement, he was telling her what he was putting in the advertisement while he was typing on his phone. She was aware that the advertisement talked about sexual services and recalled that Mr. Rahi decided that the title should be “tiny redhead”. He put her weight in, and she admitted that she must have told him that. Her name in the advertisement was “Angel” and A.K. testified they both picked that name as it was the name of her family dog. She recalled the advertisement said something about her taking care of “all your dreams”, and “in calls” and “out calls”. She testified that an in call is when a woman has a customer go to a hotel or house and an out call is where the woman goes to the customer’s house. A.K. also recalled the advertisement saying no black gentleman and using acronyms for different types of sexual services. The advertisement also set out the rate per half hour or hour. Mr. Rahi did not ask A.K. what she was prepared to do, and she testified that he told her how much money she was to receive.
92In cross-examination A.K. was taken to her May 2018 statement where she said that she followed Mr. Rahi when he went into the convenience store. She told police she was not familiar with the machine and that Mr. Rahi put $20 into the machine. A.K. readily agreed that this was different than her evidence in chief and told Defence counsel that it was hard to remember, that she was trying to be correct and did not know what to say and that there were things she was going to forget. Sitting in court she could no longer remember which it was. When this inconsistency was immediately put to her again, A.K. began to cry and we needed to take a break. In my view this was a very minor inconsistency in A.K.’s evidence, particularly when one considers the length of time that has transpired since these events. On either version of her evidence A.K. was consistent that she saw Mr. Rahi putting money into a machine.
The posting of advertisements and how customers were managed
93A.K. testified that Mr. Rahi had three phones at least. She believed one was an iPhone, one was a flip phone for sure, which he used for the Backpage advertisements, and the other was a Samsung. She did not know what he used the iPhone or Samsung phone for. This evidence about Mr. Rahi’s phones was not challenged.
94A.K. testified that after Mr. Rahi posted the advertisement, they sat in the parking lot waiting for calls. The first night after the advertisement was posted A.K. testified that she only did out calls – about five. After her memory was refreshed A.K. said it was four.
95A.K. testified that she was so scared for the first out call, when she walked into the room with the first client, she did not know what to do. However, at that time, she did not feel she had any options. All she had was Mr. Rahi and she had nowhere to go. She felt she needed to do what he asked. She was afraid if she did not, she would be left on the streets in Montreal where she had never been before and did not know anyone, and she did not speak French.
96After the first out call, A.K. was paid in cash. Mr. Rahi told her he would keep track of the money and asked her to give all the cash to him. A.K. expected to keep some of the money because she was the one who went in and provided the service, and she asked Mr. Rahi if she could keep some of it. He said no that he would get her everything she needed, and she did not need money. He told her that he was doing all the work by writing the advertisements and talking to the customers and doing most of the leg work setting things up and that all she did was go into the room. He told her he deserved more of the money.
97After the four out calls were finished Mr. Rahi said they had enough money to rent a motel room. According to A.K., Mr. Rahi’s house was about an hour’s drive away. He told her they would get a motel room so she could relax and get some sleep.
98In terms of the process, A.K. testified that these calls from customers were coming in through the Backpage’s advertisements and although she did not see the actual texts, she saw Mr. Rahi texting the customers and that in each case Mr. Rahi spoke to the customers and managed the call. She knew calls were being set up and testified that although Mr. Rahi did the texting the customers would think they were dealing with her. If a customer called, Mr. Rahi would put her on the phone. Mr. Rahi told her when the customer wanted to see her and whether it was a half hour or one hour session. A.K. testified that Mr. Rahi did not tell her what sexual services the customer wanted but told her but that she should do what the customer asked. This included full vaginal intercourse and blowjobs. Mr. Rahi drove her to the customer and the customers paid her, and she had to give all the money to Mr. Rahi. Because Mr. Rahi had arranged the price with the customer, he would tell her what price had been arranged. He knew how much money to expect from her and A.K. testified that Mr. Rahi would always check if there was any money missing
99After her memory was refreshed, A.K. testified that she continued to see customers arranged by Mr. Rahi while they were in Montreal for about a week. They then went back to Toronto. She had no days off and saw customers almost all day. She never felt she could say no to any call because she did not want to upset Mr. Rahi and have him leave her somewhere. When it was an out call Mr. Rahi would stay in the car. For in calls in a motel room, he would stay in the bathroom. He never told her why. According to A.K. she would earn a minimum of $2,000 on any given night and maybe more. She could not say that was true every single night but that was roughly how much she made a night.
100A.K. testified she was with Mr. Rahi pretty much all the time, save for an hour or so. When she was asked if she felt she could leave when she was left alone for an hour or so by Mr. Rahi, she responded that she could not. When asked why not she testified that she had no money, no cellphone, no vehicle, did not speak French and did not know where she was and had nowhere to go and she had no one to help her. She was not handcuffed to the room but felt like she was because she had nothing and was scared. A.K. testified that although Mr. Rahi did not put a gun to her head or force her to do it, she felt she had no choice. A.K. testified that at times she would sneak calls, and she called quite a few people including her mother to ask for money so she could get out of Quebec.
Mr. Rahi supplies A.K. with cocaine and alcohol
101That first week A.K. testified that Mr. Rahi gave her cocaine which she would snort, and alcohol. She did not have to ask for it, he just provided it, usually while she was working. She sometimes was given alcohol and cocaine at the same time. The amount varied and she would get very drunk. A.K. testified that because she did not feel good about what she was doing and did not feel good about herself, it was hard to do what she was doing without being “under the influence”. A.K. also told Mr. Rahi it was not easy for her to do this work sober, and she testified that Mr. Rahi told her that he knew that she would struggle to see customers without being under the influence of something. The cocaine made her feel good and provided energy, so she was able to work for longer periods. A.K. testified that there was not a lot of time to sleep and said that sometimes Mr. Rahi gave her cocaine just to keep her awake and to keep working.
102A.K. recalled having a specific conversation with Mr. Rahi in the car one night around midnight or 1:00 am. She testified that Mr. Rahi asked her why she did not want to do this work and what the problem was because she was a woman and was making good money doing this work. A.K. responded that it was too much and that she was going into rooms not knowing what she was doing, and it did not make her feel good as a person and made her feel gross about herself. They were outside a customer’s house before she was meant to go in and see the customer. A.K. testified that she thinks the subject came up because Mr. Rahi did not have any alcohol or cocaine for her. She still went in and did what the customer wanted and was paid by the customer and gave the money to Mr. Rahi.
103A.K. testified that at some point she started injecting cocaine. She saw Mr. Rahi injecting steroids and he showed her how to get it into a vein. She testified that this felt different from smoking cocaine because it hit her instantly. She really liked it and let Mr. Rahi know this. After this, Mr. Rahi continued to give her cocaine that she injected. She started doing this every day and sometimes would hide it from Mr. Rahi as it was not something she liked to do in front of people. It was mostly Mr. Rahi who gave her drugs, but customers sometimes would bring alcohol or drugs which she would then use with the customer. The drugs the customers brought were drugs like cocaine, not opioids. A.K. called this “party favours” and testified that this would be something that the customer had already cleared by text. A.K. did not know if the customers paid more to bring party favours. She never gave drugs to customers. When it was put to A.K. that Mr. Rahi never provided cocaine to her she disagreed with the suggestion.
104A.K. testified that on occasion Mr. Rahi set up “extras” with a customer allowing them to go “bareback” and not wear a condom. This would require the customer to pay an extra fee. A.K. testified that she was not okay with this and would not know in advance because it was something Mr. Rahi set up. She felt she had no choice but to do it because the customer would think she was the one who set things up. The customer had given her money already when she went in and “how could I say no.” If they ejaculated inside her Mr. Rahi gave her a pill to prevent pregnancy. A.K. testified that this happened a lot of times.
105A.K. was asked if she had any dangerous situations with customers. She testified about one occasion when Mr. Rahi brought her to a condominium. After she did what the customer wanted and asked for her money, the customer called her a whore and a slut and grabbed her, held her down and had sex with her once again forcefully. He then went to the kitchen, grabbed a knife and tried to stab her and stood in front of the door with the knife. Mr. Rahi started kicking the door down, got in and got A.K. out of the condominium. When A.K. asked Mr. Rahi if they should call the police on this guy, he said they should not because what she was doing was illegal and would get her into trouble. As a result, she “pushed it back” and tried to forget about it.
106When asked if she ever saw Mr. Rahi with any weapon, A.K. testified that under a towel on the floor of the back seat of his car he showed her a firearm. It was on the driver’s side. She was not sure how many times she saw it, but she remembered knowing it was there. A.K. testified that she was “kinda scared” knowing it was there. She said Mr. Rahi kind of made her feel intimidated by the fact it was there. She was trying to “think back and remember” and testified it was not easy to remember this stuff. When her memory was refreshed, she testified that Mr. Rahi pulled the firearm out and told her she was safe with him after the situation she had testified about with the guy in the condominium. A.K. testified that Mr. Rahi spoke in a milder way of “speaking nice” compared to how he usually talked which would scare her. She believed the gun that looked like a regular handgun was real. At the time it made her feel like she had to stay with Mr. Rahi to be protected. A.K. denied the suggestion that Mr. Rahi never showed her a firearm.
Mr. Rahi asked A.K. to provide sexual services to him
107A.K. testified that after she finished servicing clients Mr. Rahi would want a blowjob or intercourse with her. In cross-examination A.K. testified that sometimes Mr. Rahi would wear a condom and other times he would not. A.K. testified that after she gave Mr. Rahi a blowjob while they were driving to Quebec there were multiple times when he asked for one and she did it. She testified about another time early in the morning, like 5 a.m., after she saw a customer, and they were in the parking lot. This was when they were in the GTA. Mr. Rahi asked for a blowjob, and she did it. She did not feel that she had the power to say no. A.K. testified that she did what Mr. Rahi wanted. At the beginning she might have wanted to do this, but it then turned “forced almost”. When asked what she meant she testified that she taught herself how to “turn myself off”, “I would shut my brain off” and would let it happen. A.K. testified that she usually had to provide Mr. Rahi with a sexual service in order to get the cocaine.
A.K. and Mr. Rahi return to Toronto
108A.K. testified that it was Mr. Rahi’s decision to drive to Toronto and he drove her to Toronto to do some more escort work. The idea was that she would earn enough money to get a place of her own, but the process continued the same as before. Mr. Rahi did everything by texting with the customers, taking her to the customer, and telling her whether it was a half hour or hour or multiple hours session and she would give him all the money.
109A.K. recalled that they drove everywhere in Toronto together. She mentioned Ottawa, Niagara Falls and Burlington. She did not know where they were going at the time. They just ended up in a place that Mr. Rahi decided. When they arrived at a city, he would set up the advertisement, respond to the calls about the advertisement and she would go see the customers and do what the customers told her to do. A.K. testified that she did in calls as well while they were in Ontario. The money that she made from out calls was used to rent a hotel room for some period of time and she would see men there. The hotel room was booked by Mr. Rahi, and they would both sleep in that room. The fact that and Mr. Rahi were in hotel rooms together from time to time was not challenged.
110A.K. was not sure how long this went on for exactly. Any given day she would see at least 10, sometimes more customers. Mr. Rahi decided the number of customers she would see every day. She did not feel she could say no to any customer. When asked why she could not say no, A.K. responded that she did not know exactly why but it was the situation she was in. At the time she felt she could not say no to Mr. Rahi. She was in a town she did not know, and she did not know people there – it was not like she could walk to her mom’s house, for instance.
111When they were driving around Ontario there was no one else in the car with them. She then said that maybe a few times Eddy was with them, a reference to a friend of Mr. Rahi’s. A.K. testified that she never had a car, and this evidence was not challenged. She recalled that at one point she went on a couple of drives with Mr. Rahi to deliver puppies in Toronto. She never saw Mr. Rahi actually deliver the puppies, but he said he was going to deliver the puppies while she was working.
112One time when they were in Ontario a customer wanted a “duo” i.e. two women and Mr. Rahi introduced her to someone named Budsy. Mr. Rahi picked Budsy up and brought her to the hotel room where A.K. was. Budsy helped her get ready. A.K. testified she did not know a lot about makeup or hair and most of the time Mr. Rahi got her ready, but this time Budsy did her hair and makeup. The two of them then saw the customer. They were each paid cash by the customer and A.K. noticed that Budsy put some in her bra. Mr. Rahi noticed that some money was missing and asked Budsy where the rest of it was. She told him that she needed money and Mr. Rahi responded that all she needed to do was tell him what she needed, and he would buy it for her. He then drove Budsy back to her home. A.K. did not know whether Budsy every paid Mr. Rahi the difference but she gave all her money to him.
113A.K. testified that she was “kind of jealous” and started thinking maybe she should keep a little bit of money herself. She did not do so however because she saw the way Mr. Rahi was with Budsy in terms of the anger that came out in his voice and the argument that ensued and she was scared. She said Mr. Rahi had a way of speaking that scared her. It was his tone of the voice and how big he was. She was in her early 20s and inexperienced and relied on him for everything. She did not know where they were going or where she was and did not feel she could walk down the street.
114When asked how many trips she remembered to Quebec when she was with Mr. Rahi, A.K. testified that there were so many different places and so many different drives and she never knew where they were going that it was really hard to remember specifically. She recalled that there were more trips to Montreal. A.K. testified that they would go back to Quebec and check on Mr. Rahi’s wife and kids and then would go back to Ontario. She recalled that they went back to Ontario multiple times and that “all we did was drive and escort”. In cross-examination A.K. admitted that the order of events is easier to remember, and she agreed with the suggestion that she and Mr. Rahi did not go to Montreal before they took Lava.
Mr. Rahi asked A.K. to provide sexual services to friends
115A.K. testified that on one occasion Mr. Rahi brought her to see a veterinarian who he said was a “special friend” and that she needed to do exactly what he said and “treat him good”. When she provided this person with sexual services the first time, she was expecting him to pay her like all the other customers, but when she left, she did not receive any money. She assumed this person had paid Mr. Rahi directly. She saw him about 10 times in a hotel. A.K. testified that this man made her feel like she was “his item” and he really hurt her emotionally.
116A.K. also testified about two other men Mr. Rahi brought her to where she provided sexual services and was not paid. First, she testified about a friend of Mr. Rahi’s named Eddy and after her memory was refreshed, she remembered a man named Amir. She testified that she thought she got confused with the two names and that the situation she had just explained with Eddy was in fact with Amir. At this point A.K. testified that it was hard to remember all of it and that there was a “lot of stuff” blocked out in my head” and she then apologized and started crying.
117After a short break A.K. testified that she was not sure where she met Amir, but it was the same situation as all of Mr. Rahi’s friends. They would have sex with her and not pay her. At one point when the Crown asked for more details about Amir, A.K. stated that we must understand that with a “lot of this stuff” she was really trying to block it out or push it out of her mind and trying to remember it all was really overwhelming. She testified she was doing her best to remember but it was hard to “sit here and remember it”. A.K. said she was sorry again and that all she knew was that she was telling the truth.
118In cross-examination A.K. was reminded about her evidence in chief about providing sexual services to some of Mr. Rahi’s friends including a veterinarian, Eddie and Amir. Defence counsel reminded her that when she was testifying, she got mixed up between Eddy and Amir. A.K. originally thought the incident with Eddie was in a bedroom and after looking at her police statement thought it might have been Amir. In cross-examination she admitted that she still did not have a clear recollection of either of these incidents and who each was with. She denied the reason was because they did not happen and that she fabricated this evidence. A.K. testified that fabricating a fake allegation was not something she would do. She then admitted that she had in fact done that, a reference to a rape she told police about in her August 2018 statement that I will come to. A.K. insisted that these men did rape her, and that Mr. Rahi let it happen.
Use of violence by Mr. Rahi
119When A.K was asked to confirm in cross-examination that Mr. Rahi never used any physical violence toward her apart from the sexual assaults, she testified that one time he slapped her in the face with an open hand. She believes this was when she was trying to make a phone call to her mother to ask her for money so she could get out of Quebec and that got him very frustrated. A.K. was then taken to her May 2018 statement where she told police that she was afraid Mr. Rahi would find her and hurt her and that when asked if he every physically hurt her before, she told police that he “grabbed me, and – think he’s never punched me or anything, no”. When asked to explain this A.K. referred to that fact that she said: “I think” and that she was terrified of Mr. Rahi, and she did not know how he would react if he was charged with assault along with all of the other charges. She said that most of the memories she had blocked out “especially the physical stuff because that was the scariest”. She also did not fully trust the police. A.K. admitted however that she does not have a specific memory of withholding from police the fact that Mr. Rahi had been physically violent towards her. In re-examination A.K. was taken to her August 2018 statement where she told police that Mr. Rahi had used violence against her. She was not asked to explain this, but she then told police there was lots of violence, “which time do you want”. A.K. told police Mr. Rahi would use violence to get what he wanted but the police never asked her what she meant by violence. When asked in re-examination what she meant, A.K. testified that Mr. Rahi would grab her and force himself on her to get what he wanted sexually and that this happened multiple times.
A.K. leaves Mr. Rahi
120When A.K. was asked how the escorting ended, she testified that she could not remember exactly but she knows someone called Mr. Rahi, she thinks it was her probation officer, to state that she needed to show up at the courthouse and deal with a warrant. A.K. testified that Mr. Rahi agreed and drove her to the Newmarket courthouse. We do not have a precise date for when this was, but it could not have been later than January 3, 2017, when A.K. was arrested in Richmond Hill for obstruct police by giving a false name and failure to comply with a recognizance.
121A.K. testified that she did not tell Mr. Rahi that she was going to leave him before she got out of the car. She grew up in Newmarket and her father was there, so she knew the area. She exited the car and ran into the courthouse leaving as quickly as could. She did not turn back. It felt like she had freedom. After she dealt with what she needed to deal with she was supposed to go back to Mr. Rahi’s car. He was waiting in the parking lot at the back; some distance from the entrance to the courthouse. A.K. testified that instead she went around the building to the Yonge Street side and grabbed a bus. She did not have any money but the buses in Newmarket have a back entrance, and you can get on the bus there and they do not check for tickets. We do not have a date for when A.K. left Mr. Rahi but it likely was not later than January 2017.
Further contact between A.K. and Mr. Rahi
122A.K. was asked in cross-examination if she saw Mr. Rahi again between the time she got away from him at the Newmarket courthouse to the time she gave her first video statement to police on February 14, 2017. She did not think she sought him out but could not say yes or no; she just could not remember. A.K. also testified that Mr. Rahi contacted her on Facebook, and she recalled there were a couple of messages from him. She did not believe she responded to those messages.
123When it was put to A.K. that she would be relieved at finally being away from Mr. Rahi, she testified that it was “kinda mixed” after being with him for so long. A.K. testified she was used to being with him and mentally missing him. She had a hard time explaining how she felt and said there was a word for someone who has an attachment to their abuser. She agreed with Defence counsel that the term she was thinking of was “Stockholm Syndrome”. Defence counsel then took her to her February 2017 statement and although she still did not remember this A.K. agreed that Mr. Rahi had picked her up a few days earlier to drive her to the Lindsay jail to pick up some of her things. After the Newmarket courthouse she also saw him one time. She testified that she may have had a few conversations with Mr. Rahi after she left him at the Newmarket courthouse.
124A.K. testified about a time when she was “kind of stuck” having just been released from a treatment centre in North Bay. She said she was kicked out in mid - November, and when she could not recall what year, she agreed with Ms. Heaton it was November 28, 2016. A.K. testified that she had nowhere to go and was checking her Facebook and saw a message from Mr. Rahi. She ended up telling him she was stuck in Barrie and needed to get home to Newmarket. She asked if he could pick her up. Mr. Rahi came, and she got scared but was desperate to get out of Barrie. A.K. testified that the first time she ended up freaking out and not meeting with Mr. Rahi. He was upset that he had driven all the way to Barrie. She set it up again and the next time she showed up and went with him. A.K. testified that this time Mr. Rahi was with someone else in the car who was his surety. I will deal with the allegation by A.K. to police that the person with Mr. Rahi raped her, which she admitted was a lie, when I come to consider the external inconsistencies in her evidence.
125A.K. testified they went to a restaurant for food. She had belongings, namely clothes and a very special painting that she had brought with her. Mr. Rahi took her to her father’s place. At this point Mr. Rahi had not been arrested for anything. On the drive Mr. Rahi was scrolling through different profiles of girls and they got to the topic of her and escorting. At this time A.K. said she had a black eye. Mr. Rahi told her she could not see customers with a black eye but that he would see her again as he was keeping half her stuff and when he saw her again, she would get the rest of her stuff. This evidence was not challenged and there was no further evidence as to what happened to her belongings.
A.K.’s evidence about the October 2016 Group 1A advertisements for sexual services
126A.K. testified in cross-examination that she does not know about the website Eroticmugshots and so she would not have mentioned it to police. She denied she did not tell police about advertisements on Eroticmugshots because she did not think they would find those advertisements. Defence counsel also put to A.K. that she did not mention Eroticmugshots to police because she could only blame the Backpage advertisement on Mr. Rahi. She disagreed.
127A.K. recalled that she did mention Backpage to police because that is what Mr. Rahi told her he posted the advertisements on and that is what he showed her.
128When it was put to A.K. in cross-examination that while she was in Quebec with Mr. Rahi that she was posting advertisements herself and Mr. Rahi had nothing to do with it, she responded that this was laughable. A.K. also denied posting advertisements herself on Eroticmugshots before she went to police. I will come to how A.K. reacted to this suggestion when it was put to her again, when I consider her credibility and reliability as a witness.
A.K.’s evidence about the April 2017 advertisements for sexual services
129A.K. testified that all of her escorting with Mr. Rahi was one continuous chunk of time without any breaks. She did not do any more escorting with Mr. Rahi after she got away from him at the Newmarket courthouse. When it was put to A.K. that she would have no reason to post any advertisements on Backpage after she left Mr. Rahi, and that she did not do that, A.K. testified that after what happened with Mr. Rahi there were times when she did post advertisements on Backpage because she “felt that is all I was worth” and “what I thought I was worth” because it was “all I thought I could do”. She did not state when she did this but when the April 9, 2017, advertisement was shown to A.K. she said she was talking about last year and this year, i.e. 2024 and 2025.
130A.K. did not recognize the phone number in the April 9 advertisement and was not familiar with the fact it was associated with her and would not admit that it was. As I have said, it is admitted that this was A.K.’s phone number at the time. I do not fault her for not remembering this, given the finding I will come to that she was not aware that this advertisement was posted on Backpage at that time.
131A.K. testified that she did not post this advertisement and said she did not post any advertisements at that time and that she had never posted advertisements on Backpage. She was taken through the wording of the advertisement and agreed it was similar to the advertisements from the fall of 2016 (the Group 1A advertisements).
132A.K testified that one of her ex-boyfriend Daniel’s friends found photos of her when he was looking for an escort and he showed them to Daniel. Daniel had previously beaten her up by this time and according to A.K. once he saw the photos he almost killed her. At another point in her evidence, she testified that Daniel broke her jawbone and her tailbone, which was not challenged.
133A.K. testified that she did not see the photos Daniel’s friend showed him. She was not aware that someone had posted an advertisement of her online after she got away from Mr. Rahi. A.K. testified that Daniel did post photos of her on Facebook “to call me a whore and humiliate me online”. She was friends with Daniel on Facebook, and she saw the post and all the horrible comments. A.K. testified that the photos were the photos from the advertisement Mr. Rahi had posted.
134When A.K. was shown the April 7, 2017, advertisement, she testified that Daniel posted all those photos of her and that he had posted the whole advertisement. She has no idea if Daniel posted the advertisement anywhere other than Facebook. Defence counsel suggested that A.K. posted sexual services advertisements in April 2017 and that her phone number was on those advertisements. A.K. denied that she posted those advertisements.
A.K. reports Mr. Rahi to police
135As I will come to A.K. gave a number of statements to police. The first were to do with the theft of Lava. She did not disclose her allegations of sexual assault and human trafficking until the May 2018 statement.
136Mr. Rahi was arrested on the charges before this Court on November 28, 2018.
ASSESSMENT OF CREDIBILTY OF THE CROWN WITNESSES
137Defence counsel submits that the testimony of A.K. and T.J. has significant reliability and credibility issues, including obvious motives to fabricate and a possibility of collusion, which the Crown has not been able to adequately negate. Given that the credibility and reliability of the evidence of these witnesses, particularly A.K., are central issues in this trial, I will consider the defence submissions in some detail.
T.J.
138During her evidence in chief T.J. presented as a credible witness although not surprisingly she clearly had issues with remembering many details of what happened back in 2016. That is to be expected given the time that has passed since these events. As a result, T.J. needed to have her memory refreshed from time to time; for example, she did not recall that when A.K. went to live with her that she was on bail at the time. T.J. agreed it was very possible but simply could not recall at the time she was testifying. I did not get a sense she was using her lack of memory as an excuse to avoid answering certain questions.
139In cross-examination however it became very clear that T.J. still feels a lot of animosity towards Mr. Rahi because she believes he stole Lava. Defence counsel submitted that T.J. was clearly a dishonest and vindictive witness who became “combative, evasive, inconsistent”. It is submitted that she has a clear motive to seek retribution against Mr. Rahi, and her actions and insistence in pursuing what she felt was justice for the theft of her dog, given the severity of her resolve, leaves upon the possibility that T.J. would go so far as to convince A.K. to fabricate her allegations, despite their both denying this. It is argued that there is no burden on the defence to prove this alternate theory of collusion and fabrication but rather that the “possibility” of this alternate theory in fact raises a reasonable doubt. I accept that the burden in this regard is not on the defence, but these allegations must raise a reasonable doubt.
140The defence submits that T.J. fabricated her belief that Mr. Rahi was involved in a prior rape, and that her consistent insistence to smear Mr. Rahi reflected her disdain, distaste and hate for him. T.J. admitted in cross-examination that shortly after Lava was taken, she reported to police that she believed Mr. Rahi was responsible for a sexual assault which she testified was a brutal attack on a friend of hers. She also admitted that she believed that Mr. Rahi was involved in sex trafficking vulnerable women given what she believed Mr. Rahi had done to this friend. I presume that this evidence and the cross-examination that followed was to help establish the disdain that T.J. felt toward Mr. Rahi and the lengths she would go to hurt him. I want to make it very clear that I only considered this evidence in support of that defence position.
141Even without this evidence I have no difficulty in finding that not only was T.J. very frustrated and angry by the fact that the police did not take her complaint that Mr. Rahi had stolen Lava seriously but in addition, as she readily admitted, she wants revenge on Mr. Rahi for taking Lava, because this ruined her entire life "to this day". When asked if she would have done whatever it took to prove Mr. Rahi stole Lava, T.J. responded wouldn’t anyone? T.J. testified that she saw Mr. Rahi once on the subway since Lava was taken and when asked if she threatened his life, she answered that she let him know that he was "going down". T.J. maintained that “till the day I die” she would seek justice for Lava
142I also agree T.J. did seem combative and very upset when it was put to her that Lava was not a Cane Corso dog but rather a Pit Bull. She considered this question “racism” against animals, and she was not going to answer a question that was a “hate crime against innocent animals”. In my view that however was a sensitivity about this issue and does not reflect on her as a witness overall.
143The defence also submitted that this Court should take serious issue with T.J. respect for the solemnity of the proceedings because she would not agree that various text messages and an email she sent to police were in fact from her, despite that being the only logical inference as it is admitted that she sent these to police and told police that they were her text messages. I agree that is also of concern.
144Although I accept that T.J. had a motive to lie when giving evidence at trial, to the extent she might believe her evidence would hurt Mr. Rahi in this trial and I accept that I must treat her evidence with caution, that does not mean, of course, that she was in fact a dishonest witness as submitted by the defence. It is trite to state that this Court can accept all, some or none of a witness’ evidence. I will consider T.J.’s credibility as a witness, but I do not accept the suggestion that T.J. encouraged or coerced or even suggested to A.K. that she should fabricate her allegations against Mr. Rahi about the alleged sexual assaults and sex trafficking. I am satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that this did not happen and there is no possibility that it did for the reasons that follow.
145The sexual assaults alleged by A.K while she was staying with T.J. were the only seriously disputed areas of A.K.’s evidence for the period of time that T.J. could have corroborated. The fact that T.J.’s evidence on the alleged sexual assaults does not corroborate A.K.’s evidence and in fact in my view contradicts A.K.’s evidence is very significant.
146With respect to an incident in the bedroom, T.J. testified at trial before A.K. and despite questions by the Crown and Defence counsel aimed at specifically what she observed when she walked into the bedroom, and she saw Mr. Rahi “jump off” A.K., she did not take this opportunity to embellish her evidence to get revenge on Mr. Rahi. She did not even suggest Mr. Rahi had done anything wrong. Furthermore, as the Crown suggests, it appeared that T.J. did not appear to realize the importance of the event she observed in the bedroom to A.K.’s evidence as she was clear that at the time it did not occur to her that A.K. and Mr. Rahi might be in a sexual relationship. Her only concern at that time was about A.K.’s intoxication from alcohol. T.J. also did not give any evidence that might corroborate A.K.’s allegation of a sexual assault in the kitchen.
147The fact T.J.’s evidence does not corroborate A.K.’s evidence about the sexual assaults and in fact is at odds with A.K.’s evidence rebuts any suggestion that T.J. coached or colluded with A.K. to get revenge on Mr. Rahi. If they colluded one would expect T.J.’s evidence to at least have aligned with A.K.’s evidence about the sexual assault A.K. alleges happened in the kitchen and there is no evidence from T.J. to suggest she ever saw anything like this. Furthermore, her evidence about what she saw in the bedroom could easily have been tailored to support A.K.’s version of what happened.
148There was contact between T.J. and A.K. early on when Lava was taken. T.J. testified that since she was told by police to gather her own evidence, she spent time trying to prove that A.K. and Mr. Rahi took Lava. She was calling A.K. a lot because she wanted her dog back. She believed A.K. knew where Lava was but was refusing to tell her. T.J. admitted that she told A.K. that she would not help her in the future if she did not come clean about the dog. Eventually A.K. told her that she was present when Mr. Rahi took Lava and that she would go to the police and give a statement. T.J. testified that she then took A.K. to the police station because A.K. was scared and needed a lot of support. This would have been A.K.’s first statement to police in February 2017 when, as I will come to, A.K. admitted at trial that she lied to police and told them that she was the one who took Lava. This statement did not hurt Mr. Rahi and is not something T.J. would have asked A.K. to say; quite the contrary as she is firm that she believes Mr. Rahi stole Lava.
149Furthermore, it is important that this February 2017 statement was well before A.K. made her allegations of sexual assault and human trafficking known to police. That occurred over a year later in May 2018 when there is really no evidence A.K. and T.J. were still even in communication with each other. T.J. testified that the only statement she was aware of that A.K. made to police was the one she took her to, namely the February 2017 statement. She admitted it was possible that she knew about the other statements A.K. made to police but she denied counselling A.K. to make further statements to get Mr. Rahi arrested. T.J. testified that she only encouraged A.K. to tell the truth. A.K.’s evidence that after October 2016, she never stayed in T.J.’s home again was not challenged and neither A.K. nor T.J. were asked about communications between them after A.K. left Mr. Rahi.
150I also note that when Ms. Heaton put to T.J. that she convinced A.K. to falsify allegations of sexual assault against Mr. Rahi to get him arrested T.J. responded that that was disgusting behaviour in reference to Ms. Heaton’s question. She added that Ms. Heaton should already know that if Mr. Rahi was innocent, he would not be playing “these games for the last seven years”. Defence counsel submits that she also suggested to T.J. that she convinced A.K. to falsify allegations of human trafficking and that predictably she also denied this. Defence counsel submitted that based on the demeanour, content and frailties of T.J.’s evidence, she should not be believed on this point. However, counsel did not in fact suggest to T.J. that she even spoke to A.K. about her human trafficking allegations
151I have already explained why, considering the evidence of T.J. I find she did not collude or coach A.K. with respect to her sexual assault allegations. I also agree with Crown counsel that it defies coincidence that T.J. conspired with A.K. to get revenge on Mr. Rahi by fabricating human trafficking allegations or coached her to testify with such a degree of detail that it somehow matches up with K.H.’s experience. There is not dispute that neither of them knew K.H. and A.K. first told the police about her allegations of human trafficking in her May 2018 statement, six months before Mr. Rahi was arrested for trafficking K.H. This observation does not depend on the relevance of the similar fact evidence, an issue I will come to, only a comparison of the core allegations of A.K. and K.H.
152I will come back to this issue when I consider the further submissions made with respect to the evidence of A.K.
153In summary although I must treat T.J.’s evidence with caution, I accept her evidence and make the following findings of fact, which were not challenged in Defence counsel’s cross-examination of either T.J. or A.K.:
a) A.K. and Mr. Rahi stayed with T.J. in her home for a period from the very end of September 2016 until they were kicked out by T.J. in October 2016,
b) Mr. Rahi became aware of A.K.’s alcohol addiction, and vulnerabilities in general while he was staying with her in T.J.’s home,
c) Mr. Rahi and A.K. were together in the bedroom with a bottle of rye and A.K. appeared intoxicated,
d) T.J. kicked them both out of her house at the same time, and
e) the eviction happened days before Lava was taken.
A.K.
154A.K.’s credibility and reliability are the central issues in this case.
155A.K. was 30 at the time she testified. She gave evidence initially from a police detachment and later from a hotel room in an unknown location in British Columbia in the presence of a support worker via Zoom. Because of the time difference we tried to start court at 11:30 am, EST, which was 8:30 am for A.K. Her evidence started on November 10, and continued on November 12, until November 18th when her evidence in chief finished. Her cross-examination started that day and A.K. was cross-examined over five days, finishing on November 25, 20268.
156Some days court started later than 11:30 am, particularly on Thursday November 20, when the support worker advised that us that A.K. was exhausted and needed a break and then again on November 21 when we were advised that A.K. had been admitted to hospital having suffered a hit to her head but would be discharged and available to testify later in the day – her cross-examination did continue that day. In addition to breaks necessary for lunch and the customary court breaks we also took numerous short breaks to accommodate A.K. when she asked for a break or appeared to need one.
157Defence counsel has raised a number of legitimate concerns with A.K.s’ evidence that I must carefully consider, including her demeanour, her memory, her admitted drug use during the trial and the external inconsistencies in her evidence which include some admissions by A.K. that she lied to police. In addition, there is the allegation she has fabricated her allegations because of T.J. who is alleged to have coached her to give the evidence she did, that I have already reviewed to some extent.
158Before considering the issues raised by Defence counsel, I make one observation. Although A.K. has been charged by police in the past, there is no evidence that she has a criminal record. A.K. testified that at the time she went to stay with T.J. she had outstanding criminal charges for theft, which she attributed to her lifestyle as she needed to steal to buy groceries. She also had outstanding drug possession charges because of her drug use. She could not remember what the specific charges were that resulted in the September 2016 release order, but she was pretty sure she pleaded guilty and was convicted because she recalled serving a 30 day sentence around that time in relation to an assault on her sister. When she was told that there was no period of time she was in custody for more than a few days in 2016 to 2018, she said that maybe it was in 2019 or 2020 and that she could not remember.
159In the ASF it is agreed that A.K.’s period in custody from September 27, 2016 to February 6, 2017 never exceeded a few days. However, I cannot conclude A.K never spent 30 days in jail without more evidence. That said, in cross-examination A.K. admitted that there were so many times she faced charges it was hard to recall the details of each one. She admitted that she had been arrested a few times and in custody a few times, mostly at the Lindsay jail. At the time she was struggling with alcohol and substance abuse and so it was hard to keep track of this. She also explained that in the fall of 2016 she was in a very abusive relationship with her ex-boyfriend Daniel, who hit her every single day and emotionally abused her. She eventually went to police about him.
160What is clear is that there is no evidence that A.K. has ever been convicted of a criminal offence that is relevant to her honesty as a witness. Her admission of the types of charges she was facing in the relevant time frame is consistent with her evidence of drug and alcohol addiction at that time. I have not relied upon those charges as conduct undermining her honesty as a witness, nor has the defence suggested that I should.
A.K.’s demeanour
161Although not considered as important as it once was, as this Court had an opportunity to observe A.K. give evidence over several days, her demeanour in court still has some significance. In my view, it is helpful to see if there is a change in a witness’ responsiveness to questions in cross-examination as compared to the witness’ evidence in chief. The way a witness testifies, including any unanswered questions, challenging counsel, or run-on and unresponsive answers, may be relevant to my assessment of the reliability and credibility of their evidence.
162Defence counsel submits that A.K.’s resistance to answering questions in cross examination began immediately. The primary example of this relied on by the defence is from the beginning of the cross examination on November 18th when questions were asked about memory. A.K. was asked to agree with the suggestion that memories do not get better with time, so that if one was describing the same incident when speaking to police in 2016-2018 as she was describing in court, the statement closer to the event, if different than something said in court, would be more likely to be accurate. A.K. did not agree. She was asked why not, and she stated, “because the things I wrote in those statements are facts, what I wrote in that statements are the same as what I said in court”. She was then asked if there are details that are different, whether it was more likely the version in the statement was more accurate. Her response was “no comment”. Defence counsel then reminded A.K. of an example in chief related to how many clients she serviced on her first night. It was put to her that that in her statement to police A.K. said she saw four clients, while in court she had said five and that after she saw her statement A.K. adopted the answer given to police. Despite this example, A.K. still did not agree with the suggestion the second time, that when details are different to what she testified to in court, it is more likely that details given in the earlier statements were accurate.
163It is the defence position that this exchange was an early demonstration of A.K.’s “combative, evasive and unreasonable demeanour in cross examination” and “an early demonstration of her resistance to testifying truthfully and candidly in accordance with her oath”. The defence also submits that in cross examination, A.K. refused to answer other questions, stating she was not “dignifying” a question with a response and that she “often” questioned the relevance of a question. An example given was when A.K. was asked what substances she had issues with approximately two months prior to the trial and she responded, “why is it relevant”. I do not agree that A.K. often questioned the relevance of a question. I do recall this example, but it must be put in context. First, as I will come to, once the cross-examination began A.K. was asked repeatedly about her drug use during the trial and she never hesitated in answering those questions. Furthermore, had the Crown objected, I would have ruled this question totally irrelevant. Having already had to disclose a great deal of difficult and personal information I can understand why A.K. would have this reaction to the question. What drugs she was taking two months prior to trial is not relevant to any issues before this Court.
164As for the examples of what the defence calls early resistance, I cannot explain why A.K. reacted to these questions about memory the way that she did. I agree that in this exchange she seemed resistant to cross-examination, but I must look at her entire cross-examination to assess the importance of this submission. A.K. was cross-examined over several days. I found that overall, her demeanor did not change in cross-examination and that she was very responsive to questions asked by Defence counsel. The exceptions I observed, when on occasion she did not answer a question or her demeanour changed, all related to when Defence counsel put to her that her evidence about the sexual assaults and human trafficking was not true, that she was in fact posting her own advertisements and providing sexual services without any help from Mr. Rahi and that Mr. Rahi was not even aware she was doing so when they were together. These questions caused A.K. to become quite upset and that upset continued when these types of suggestions were put to A.K., even when, with the consent of counsel, I advised A.K. that Defence counsel was just doing her job. A.K. still felt that as she had lived through all of this and was suffering as a result that Defence counsel “can’t sit there and tell me what he didn’t do”.
165In re-examination A.K. was asked what she was thinking when she did not want to respond to a question and said what was being asked was “disgusting”. A.K. responded that listening to Defence counsel say that something did not happen:
just hurt me so bad because, you know, I live with what he did to me. You know, for her to sit there and you know saying something didn't happen to me just like, you know, just disgusts me. … I know that’s her job and … is to be on his defence but she cannot sit there and tell me that something didn’t happen to me because I was there, Kal was there, she was not there and when she said that I just felt so much pain inside.
166I found that A.K.’s reaction to these questions was not unusual given the nature of the evidence A.K. was giving. To the extent she responded to these types of questions, stating she was not “dignifying” a question with a response, I was not concerned about that because it was usually if not always in the context of these types of questions. If that had not been the case, I would have directed A.K. to answer the question. In the circumstances I do not view these exchanges as A.K. challenging counsel or being unresponsive, and it certainly did not suggest to me that she was being combative.
167On a minor point, in the cross-examination of A.K. it was suggested that at times when asked questions she smiled or smirked. A.K. did admit that she does smile sometimes when she gets nervous and that a lot of people take it the wrong way. I did not observe this behaviour but accept that explanation if it occurred as it is something I have seen over the years from time to time when witnesses are giving evidence. If it occurred in this case, I find it was a sign of nervousness, not a sign that A.K. did not appreciate the seriousness of the proceedings.
168I have other observations of A.K.’s demeanour but they are best addressed when I come to Defence counsel’s submissions on her use of drugs during the trial.
A.K.’s memory
169The events that give rise to the charges against Mr. Rahi took place about nine years ago. I was not surprised by the fact that many times A.K. needed to refresh her memory both in her evidence in chief and in cross-examination. In cross-examination, A.K. did ultimately agree that that memory does not improve with time although she stated that some events like a big event stand out more than others. She also, albeit reluctantly, agreed that what she told police in the various statements she gave to police between 2017 to 2019 were likely more accurate than her memory at the time she testified.
170A.K. did agree with Defence counsel that almost every time her memory was refreshed by Crown counsel that she gave evidence consistent with what was stated in the transcript. A.K. denied that she simply adopted the earlier evidence and testified that the transcript actually refreshed her memory of an event. In my experience as a trial judge, it is very rare when a witness has their memory refreshed that they do not then simply give the evidence that is consistent with the prior statement. I usually do not find that a sign of a dishonest witness. However, in this case, there were in fact times when counsel attempted to use a police statement to refresh A.K.’s memory and she testified that she still did not remember despite what she told police. I have already given a couple examples of this and there were other times when A.K. was taken to a police statement and she did not simply state that her memory was refreshed. I find that is a sign of A.K. doing her best to tell the truth in court because the easiest response would be to simply adopt what was stated earlier, particularly as I do not recall this happening when Defence counsel was trying to confirm an important admission made by A.K to police or a significant inconsistency in her evidence.
171I also found it significant that on many occasions when A.K. testified that she did not remember something she apologized for this. A good example was the cross-examination over the inconsistency in her evidence versus her statement to police about Mr. Rahi purchasing bitcoin and the difference in her evidence as to whether she simply saw what Mr. Rahi was doing from the car or went into the convenience store with him. This was a minor discrepancy that A.K. readily acknowledged but the fact that A.K. had forgotten or was inconsistent about what happened really upset her and I found her sincere when she told Defence counsel that it was hard to remember, that she was trying to be correct and that there were things she was going to forget. I found A.K.’s reaction to be sincere and in my view, it illustrated how hard she was trying to be accurate in her evidence at trial because this really was a very minor discrepancy. Generally. I found the apologies A.K. gave from time to time and comments of this nature when she could not remember something to be sincere. In my view she was not apologizing to detract from the inconsistency the Defence counsel had pointed out or to feign a memory loss when that was not the case.
172A.K. also gave evidence about memory and her inability to remember details at various points in the cross-examination. She testified several times that she has tried to block out memories of these events. For example, at one point in cross-examination A.K. testified that she has a lot of memories and that: “I can’t live daily with those memories, I won’t survive. I will kill myself. I have tried to do it living with those memories daily. And so the only way I would survive it was to block those memories out”.
173I am satisfied that the times A.K. had issues with remembering details, it was not because she was trying to avoid answering a question. In fact, it was the opposite. A.K. testified that she was scared and nervous about the fact that she had not been able to remember certain facts about the case and that “because of that, you know, he is going to get away with what he did to me, and I just wish I could have remembered, you know, every statement and everything I said. It has been so many years like just trying so hard to forget about it.”
174In my view this evidence is consistent with well-known principles of how someone who has experienced a traumatic event can react and recall that could explain some aspects of A.K.’s evidence. The Court of Appeal for Ontario has recognized that a court can take judicial notice of the following propositions that are rooted in common human experience:
(a) Observations made by witnesses in the course of traumatic events can be difficult to recall and to describe accurately at a later date,
(b) A witness cannot be expected to have a faithful memory of minor incidents that occurred during a traumatic event, and the inability to recall a minor or insignificant event does not detract from the witness’s overall reliability or credibility, and
(c) It is human nature to try to make sense out of bits and pieces of memories about an event, and this may impact the accuracy of a witness’s testimony concerning events: R. v. GMC, 2022 ONCA 2, 159 O.R. (3d) 561 at para. 38.
175As the court said in R. v. AA, 2023 ONCA 17, [2023] O.J. No. 1143 at para. 17:
[i]t is well accepted that peripheral details of a traumatic event can be difficult to recall and accurately describe at a later date: see, for example, R. v. G.M.C., 2022 ONCA 2, at para. 38. The trial judge was clearly alive to the complainant's inability to recall certain specific details of the events. However, as the trier of fact, it was open to him to accept the core of the complainant's testimony, which proved the elements of the offences, while acknowledging that she could not explain all the precise details of how she escaped. The impact of this inability, to the extent that it existed, on both the complainant's overall reliability and credibility was entirely for the trial judge to assess. …
176A.K. has testified that she experienced a number of traumatic events. In my view the principles set out in GMC and A.A. could explain A.K.’s inability to remember certain details peripheral to her main allegations. They could also explain her difficulty in explaining everything that happened to her accurately and consistently over time. These principles in my view also explain A.K.’s emotional reaction to some of the questions put to her by Defence counsel when it was suggested to her that these events did not occur. I will come to the alleged inconsistencies in A.K.’s evidence to determine if her gaps in memory and difficulty in accurately recalling relate to peripheral details or the core of her allegations and consider the defence position that she lied to police in her earlier statements and at trial and how this impacts the reliability and credibility of A.K. as a witness. However, I find that A.K.’s demeanour in court in terms of her emotional reaction to some questions asked by Defence counsel was not that of a witness who did not take her oath seriously or was resisting answering counsel’s questions. I find that A.K. was honestly endeavouring to tell the truth, and that she was not being evasive.
A.K.’s state of mind and drug use
177Defence counsel did not argue that A.K.’s admitted drug and alcohol use at the time of the events in issue impacted her credibility or reliability as a witness. I have however considered this. In my view A.K. did tell this Court what she recalled to the best of her ability. No expert evidence was called with respect to a person’s ability to perceive and remember events while under the influence of drugs or alcohol, but I accept that A.K.’s use of alcohol and cocaine when she was with Mr. Rahi may have had some impact on the reliability of her evidence, primarily with respect to her memory of certain details about the events. In addition, she testified that she has tried to block out these memories in order to survive. To the extent A.K. was not able to remember certain details of the events or statements she made to police I find that the primary reason was the passage of time. She was being asked in detail about events that happened nine years ago. Most importantly, as I will explain, on her core allegations A.K.’s evidence was firm and consistent and did not appear to be impacted by any memory or perception issues.
178I must however assess the reliability and credibility of A.K.’s evidence in light of her admission that she was using drugs during the trial.
179A.K. began testifying on Thursday November 10th. She needed to have her memory refreshed on a couple of occasions, which I did not find surprising given that the events she is testifying about are now nine years old. The trial was adjourned to November 12th because of Remembrance Day. I noticed that the complainant was yawning as her evidence in chief continued and she appeared to be very tired. Her answers to the questions were responsive and coherent, but when she testified about the first alleged sexual assault in the kitchen, she seemed very upset and avoided eye contact. There were also a lot of pauses before she answered questions as the day progressed.
180In A.K.’s absence Defence counsel raised concerns about her capacity. Counsel commented on the fact that on numerous occasions A.K.’s eyes had been closed which could be a sign of her thinking but there were also significant pauses after questions were asked. Counsel also stated she had observed A.K.’s head shaking and her mouth twitching and her eyes darting quickly around the room. She questioned whether A.K. was using substances. As the Crown pointed out, it sometimes took a little longer for the complainant to answer questions but as I found, all of her answers to the Crown’s questions were responsive and coherent. Crown counsel also submitted that the time needed to answer the question was because of the delay from the time of these events to A.K. testifying. It was agreed that Defence counsel’s concerns could be addressed in cross-examination.
181I did not observe the shaking and twitching Defence counsel submitted she had seen, even after I paid closer attention to A.K.’s demeanour after this submission was made. For the most part I saw A.K. looking down and so do not accept that there was anything usual about the way her eyes moved. I did observe however as the examination in chief of A.K. continued she did appear to be getting more and more tired. Again, in the absence of the witness, Defence counsel submitted that it appeared that A.K. had “nodded off”. This was disputed by the Crown, and it was not something I had observed, but it was agreed that the Crown should inquire about how much sleep A.K. had had. When asked, A.K. advised that she had only had two hours sleep the night before and three hours sleep the night before that. She admitted to being very tired and being extremely tired the day before but testified she did not want to waste the court’s time as this was a serious matter. As such we continued with her testimony. Shortly after that A.K. admitted she was not able to concentrate on the questions and counsel agreed that it did not make sense to continue the complainant’s evidence that day.
182In cross-examination A.K. admitted that on one of the days she was tired she had used drugs. When it was put to her that she should have told the court this when she told us she was tired, she responded that she answered a direct question about how long she had slept and that had she been asked about drugs she would have told us. She added that the lack of sleep was not because of her drug use. She explained that when she would lie down the memories of what happened would fill her head. When pushed she admitted that part of the reason for lack of sleep was drug use. When asked again why she did not tell the Crown that, A.K. repeated that it was because she was asked a direct question about how much sleep she got. A.K. added that she is quite embarrassed about her addiction, that she wishes she could do better and stop using drugs but that she finds it really hard and has no choice. She testified that she was doing her best to be a reliable and honest witness but that using drugs was not her choice.
183I accept A.K.’s evidence that she was embarrassed to admit her drug use a first, but I do not agree that A.K. was being evasive in this exchange. The Crown deliberately chose only to ask her about sleep and that is what she answered. Furthermore, as I will come to, when A.K. was asked in cross-examination about her drug use over and over, she was always forthright in admitting to it.
184When the cross-examination of A.K. commenced she was asked about her drug use prior to and during her evidence. A.K. testified that although she has been working really hard to stay off drugs, during her evidence in chief she had used crack cocaine. She also admitted she had opioids the prior week but not on the days when she said she did not have much sleep. She said that she had started using medication that took away all the symptoms of withdrawal from opioids.
185A.K. testified that she did not feel the effect of using crack cocaine while she testified and that she was being truthful. She also said that she has used drugs so much in the past that she was not using them to get high anymore but using them daily just to function. She added that every day she deals with the trauma of what Mr. Rahi did to her and she thinks about it and “every day I use drugs just to make myself not feel the pain of my life anymore” and “to be able to go on with my life. To be able to function daily without wanting to kill myself”.
186As the cross-examination continued, every morning when it began, and when it resumed after any washroom breaks that A.K. requested, on breaks we took for lunch or the usual court breaks, Defence counsel asked A.K. if she had used any drugs before court and if so when. Invariably A.K. admitted to smoking a small amount of crack cocaine from a pipe typically 10 to 15 minutes earlier. A.K. testified that this did not impact on her ability to testify at all and that it made her feel “more awake and alert”. She said that when she uses cocaine it gives her a burst of energy and keeps her awake for 30 minutes to a couple of hours. A.K. denied that it would be difficult to testify and be truthful while under the influence of drugs. She stated that she had a lot of personal “stuff” going on now and that she was really trying hard to focus on the questions but also admitted that what was going on in her life and her substance use could have something to do with her ability to focus. All of her answers to questions were responsive and coherent however and so I was not concerned about A.K.’s ability to focus. When there were times A.K. seemed tired or too upset to continue, we took breaks or adjourned for the day.
187I found A.K. very frank in answering questions about her use of illicit drugs and how they impacted her. Defence counsel submits that in cross examination, A.K. began testimony by denying experiencing any withdrawals. She reminded the court that she was on a medication that prevented withdrawals. But when pushed further, she admitted to having used crack cocaine, citing withdrawal. She was asked why she had previously said she was not in withdrawal when she now admitted to using crack cocaine and experiencing withdrawal. A.K. explained that she had only been testifying about opioid withdrawal when first asked. Defence counsel submits that this was an example of A.K. testifying to partial truths instead of answering with whole truth, but I disagree. I found A.K. consistent in her evidence that it was her use of opioids that caused her to experience symptoms of withdrawal and that is why she was taking medication to combat that. I accept A.K.’s evidence that she did not feel symptoms of withdrawal with cocaine and there was certainly no sign of any symptoms that could be of concern when she was testifying.
188Later in the trial A.K. admitted that she had used fentanyl, not shortly before court or during the day of court but a couple of times in the evening after court finished. On November 20, 2025, we were advised by A.K.’s support worker that she was exhausted and wanted a break and continue her evidence the following day. On November 21, we were advised by A.K.’s support worker that she had been in hospital but that she would be discharged later that day. Her cross-examination continued later that day after she was discharged from hospital, A.K. admitted that she had used fentanyl the day before because she was very tired and needed a break. She was not sleeping and claimed this had to do with the trial. A.K. testified that when she uses fentanyl, she passes out shortly afterwards. She had no recollection of how long she slept, and her next memory was waking up in the hospital. She had been admitted because of her drug use. She said the day before [November 19th] had taken a lot out of her. She was just a bit groggy now, and so counsel agreed to continue her cross-examination.
189The final day that A.K. testified was on November 25, 2026. The support worker advised that A.K. needed a bit more time before starting her evidence and so we delayed the start time for 45 minutes. When we began, I asked A.K. how she was feeling and if she could continue. She told me that she was not really feeling OK, but she would do her best to continue. When this was explored by Defence counsel, A.K. testified that she had had an emotional morning and felt rushed so just needed some extra time. When she was asked if she had used any substances, A.K. testified that she had smoked crack cocaine from her pipe about 30 minutes earlier and for the first time she admitted taking fentanyl on a day she was coming to court. A.K. testified that she realized that was a mistake and so she “Narcaned”9 herself ten minutes earlier. She felt that was the best decision because it would take away the feelings that fentanyl gave her. She said that she was feeling the effect of that “a little bit”. When asked if she could concentrate on Defence counsel’s questions as a result, A.K. testified:
It is not about the drugs right now that is causing me issues, it’s about, you know ... throughout this court process I have really tried my best to be honest and … tell the truth but … I’m scared and I’m nervous about … what I’ve said and what I have forgot, and what I wish I would have remembered is causing me a lot of stress and there is a lot of stuff going on in my personal life right now that is causing more stress.
190A.K. went on to say that she just needed a little more time to “centre herself” and after some discussion with counsel, Defence counsel suggested that we continue for a short while. Given that A.K. had been responding to the questions counsel had already asked I agreed that that that is what we should do. A.K.’s cross-examination then continued until it finished, and a brief re-examination was completed later that day, with breaks as needed.
191Later in her cross-examination that day A.K. agreed that in the past her substance use was something that made her not make the best decisions. She denied that was still true but then admitted that by taking fentanyl that had affected her judgment. A.K. stated again that she had been working hard on trying to get clean and had been doing her best to stay clean during this trial. Despite the impacts of her substance abuse on her judgment A.K. maintained that she had done her best to tell the truth in court.
192It is the defence position that a witness’ willful, self-inflicted intoxication is demeanor evidence about the witness’ attitude towards the solemnity of the proceedings, demonstrates a lack of respect towards the court and calls into question whether the witness could even be bound by their oath to tell the truth. To my surprise it was even submitted that intoxication during court proceedings can be punished as contempt of court. I say surprise because the defence also submitted that it does not question the legitimacy of A.K.’s claims of addiction, as her use during trial and hospitalization related to drug use during the trial clearly establishes this. I therefore fail to see why the fact that in certain cases willful intoxication before and during court can result in a finding of contempt would even be part of the defence’s written submissions in this case.
193A.K. testified many times throughout her cross-examination that she struggles with addiction and that not using drugs for the length of time of her evidence was really hard. She repeatedly said that she was doing her best to not use drugs while in court, but she did not have a choice because of her addiction. I accept that evidence. Considering A.K.’s drug addiction issues it would be more surprising if she had testified that she was not continuing to use at least crack cocaine. I find it is without question that A.K. is a very troubled young woman who at the time of testifying before this court had serious drug addiction issues. I also find that for various reasons, abstaining from the use of drugs during this trial was beyond A.K.’s control.
194Defence counsel also submitted that “it cannot be disputed that A.K. was impaired by intoxicants throughout this trial”. I do not think use of the term “impaired” is useful. The real question for this Court is whether A.K.’s admitted drug use impacted the reliability of the evidence she gave in this trial or impacts her credibility in terms of her ability to testify with veracity.
195I have already set out the defence submission as to what counsel observed of A.K. during her examination in chief and I dealt with that to some extent when I considered A.K.’s demeanour. In terms of drug use, the defence submits that there were internal inconsistencies in A.K.’s evidence that could be, in part, attributed to having been impacted by drugs while giving evidence. However, Defence counsel does not argue that there were any significant internal inconsistencies in A.K.’s evidence which would be expected if there was merit to this argument. I can only recall one time although there may have been more when A.K. could not recall what she said in her evidence in chief, for example whether she testified in chief that Mr. Rahi wore a condom during the alleged sexual assault in the kitchen. A.K. gave as a reason that she was “overwhelmed” and I accept that. Even counsel can often disagree as to what a witness said in evidence during an examination and so to expect perfect recall from a witness seems unreasonable. In any event, I could not conclude any issue of this nature was due to drug use as opposed to simply fatigue or as A.K. put it being overwhelmed.
196Defence counsel submitted that despite A.K.’s claim that the effects of the intoxicants did not impede her ability to focus and respond to questions, such an impact was obvious. There were a few times A.K. said she was having difficulty focusing and answering questions because of lack of sleep and “other things going on in her personal life” and difficulty of the subject matter of her evidence. Defence counsel submits that when challenged on this explanation A.K. testified that it “could be the substance abuse as well for sure. I’m saying it’s a mix.” I do not accept this submission.
197I appreciate that I must treat A.K.’s evidence with caution because of her admitted drug use during the time she was giving evidence, but I am satisfied that it did not impact the reliability of her evidence or impact her credibility in terms of her ability to testify with veracity. A.K. was clearly tired during the examination in chief and sometimes that meant pauses before she answered questions, and sometimes questions needed to be repeated, but her answers to the questions were always responsive and coherent. In fact, once the cross-examination began, considering her manner of answering questions, it seemed that A.K. was in fact more alert, consistent with her evidence that that is how she feels after using crack cocaine. The frequent yawning I observed in her evidence in chief stopped. Again, there was no sign of impairment and her answers to questions were always responsive and coherent. Throughout all of A.K.’s evidence there was no sign of her being impaired by drugs, such as hallucinating or encroaching thoughts. A.K. was certainly more emotional, particularly later in the cross-examination when Defence counsel was suggesting to her that her allegations were not true, but that is to be expected and again her explanations for her reactions were coherent and quite frankly compelling.
198A.K.’s drug use did result in losing time, particularly the day she went to hospital and at times her fatigue or difficulty focusing caused her to ask for a break or to discontinue her evidence for the day. A.K. was not shy about asking for a break and we always accommodated those requests, and we ended the day when she felt that she could not continue.
199For these reasons I find that A.K.’s drug use during the trial did not adversely impact the reliability of her evidence or the credibility of her answers. Overall A.K. appeared to me to be entirely unaffected by her use of crack cocaine before and while testifying. My observations are consistent with her evidence that because of her drug use, she uses crack cocaine not to get high but just to function and it makes her more alert. A.K.’s use of fentanyl on the last day of her evidence was a mistake that she acknowledged but again, perhaps because she countered the impact with Narcan, she did not seem ready to pass out, which she said happened when she used fentanyl and although she was not feeling well, she soldiered on and was able to complete the cross-examination and a short re-examination. There was no sign on the last day of her evidence of A.K. nodding off or what she experienced earlier in the morning adversely impacting the quality of her evidence.
200For these reasons I find that A.K.’s use of cocaine during the trial and the fact she took fentanyl on the last day before she testified did not have any material impact on her reliability or credibility as a witness at trial.
201Crown counsel referred to the recent unreported decision of Loignon J. from the Ontario Court of Justice, R. v. Levasseur-St. Jean (22 April 2025), Ottawa (Ont. Prov. Ct.). In that case the complainant was addicted to, and a regular user of fentanyl and she needed to consume the drug at regular intervals. Loignon J. grappled with the issue of the complainant having consumed fentanyl before testifying. She held that it did not in and of itself render her evidence suspect. Rather, she assessed specific examples of how fentanyl affected this witness, and how she presented when she testified. Loignon J. observed that the witness “nodded off during her evidence” twice, which led to a concern about the quality of her evidence provided during that time. However, the trial judge considered that the witness answered all of the questions put to her and her brief answers were a function of her being in cross-examination. The trial judge considered corroborating evidence, accepted the complainant’s testimony, and found the defendant guilty.
Inconsistencies between A.K.’s evidence at trial and her statements to police
202Defence counsel does not submit that there were any material internal inconsistencies in A.K.’s evidence at trial but the defence does rely on inconsistencies between A.K.’s evidence at trial and prior statements to police.
203A.K. gave one unrecorded statement to Detective Albanese by phone on November 21, 2016. When A.K. was called by T.J. on January 20, 2017, T.J. recorded the call. A.K. then gave a video statement to Detective Albanese on February 14, 2017. These statements were all to do with T.J.’s allegations about the theft of Lava. A.K. gave another statement to Detective Albanese in May 2018, when she disclosed her allegations of sexual assault and trafficking by Mr. Rahi for the first time and again in August 2018. Finally, A.K. gave video statements to Detective Medeiros and another officer who was with the TPS Human Trafficking Unit in January 2019 and then again when she went back to police in March 2022.
204A.K. acknowledged that her five police statements were taken under oath and that even when speaking to police while not under oath she knew it was wrong to lie to police, that she understood it was a criminal offence and that she could be charged for providing false statements. As Defence counsel submits, A.K. also admitted that from the first interview in February 2017 until the final statement in March 2022, police expressed concern over her truthfulness, asking questions about why she had lied on previous occasions. I agree that this is relevant because the oath was not simply a formality done at the beginning of statements and dropped, but rather something A.K. admits she was reminded of by the officers throughout her various statements.
205It is the position of the defence that A.K. chose to lie multiple times, and on significant issues. As I will come to A.K. admitted to certain lies to police in her evidence in chief and she explained why she was not truthful on those occasions. Early in the cross-examination A.K. agreed that she had had a chance to review her statements to police and when asked if there there was anything else that was not truthful in her statements to police or anything else she wished to change, she answered that there was not. However, as I will come to, A.K. admitted to a few more times when what she told police was not true or was incorrect. It was put to her each time by Defence counsel that she had had a chance to review her previous statements and yet had not identified these other issues before being asked about them.
206I will review the inconsistencies between A.K.’s evidence at trial and her earlier statements but need to address one argument first. I do not fault A.K. for not volunteering more inconsistencies in either her evidence in chief or at the outset of her cross-examination that were exposed later in cross-examination for several reasons. First, I would characterize some of the inconsistencies Defence counsel exposed, more as mistakes than deliberate lies. Secondly the video statements comprise almost 300 pages of transcripts taken over a period of almost five years. A.K. admitted that she had a “chance” to review her statements. However, there is no evidence that A.K. was ever asked to carefully review these statements for inaccuracies and given the volume of those statements I accept her evidence that it would be hard to identify errors. As she said: “it was hard to remember every single statement she made”. I also accept A.K.’s evidence that it was very hard to review her statements as it “brought up a lot of stuff” and she “tried not to keep a lot of stuff in her head and tended to block stuff out”. Furthermore, because A.K. had gaps in her memory of some of the details of events, that meant she might not realize something was not accurate until she had a chance to refresh her memory and/or was questioned about it. Finally, when she was questioned about inconsistencies, subject to the argument of the defence that she did some “wordsmithing” to explain some of them, which I will deal with, I found she readily admitted the errors and often admitted that it was a lie although it did not necessarily appear to me to be a deliberate lie but rather a mistake. Furthermore, all these inconsistencies were of what I would describe as facts peripheral to A.K.’s core allegations.
207Turning to the external inconsistencies in A.K.’s evidence, in her examination in chief she admitted that she lied to police in three areas; the theft of Lava, what happened to Lava in Quebec and lying to police in January of 2019 when she went to police and made a false rape allegation involving an unknown man, alleging that Mr. Rahi had taken her to the location where the rape occurred.
208In connection with the statements to police about Lava, during her first police statement in February 2017, A.K. said she went into T.J.’s house to take Lava. In court she testified Mr. Rahi went inside alone and took the dog. A.K. testified that at the time she was afraid of Mr. Rahi and did not want to disclose his involvement in the dog theft. I accept that explanation. This statement was taken very close to the time when A.K. left Mr. Rahi and I accept that she would still have been fearful of getting him into trouble with police. Her fear of Mr. Rahi is also consistent with what A.K. admitted were other lies in her early statements to police. In cross-examination A.K. did not recall her unrecorded telephone conversation with Detective Albanese on November 21, 2016. After her memory was refreshed, she agreed that she lied when she told him that her trip to Quebec with Mr. Rahi involved an eight-week-old puppy, and not Lava. Again, this lie is consistent with A.K. not wanting to get Mr. Rahi in trouble with police. Furthermore, the fact A.K. did not testify about this admitted lie in her evidence in chief can be explained by her evidence that she did not recall this conversation with Detective Albanese. That too is reasonable as it was an unrecorded phone call. It was not until her May 2018 statement that A.K. told police that it was Mr. Rahi who stole Lava.
209Although I recognize that I must consider the fact that A.K. admitted these lies to police about Lava, and that she would have known she was lying to police at the time, I accept that she said these things because she feared Mr. Rahi at the time. She readily admitted that these statements were not true and none of them go to her core allegations. Considering all of her evidence, in my view these admitted lies do not have a significant adverse impact on A.K.’s credibility at trial.
210A.K. was taken by the Crown to her January 2019 statement which she confirmed she remembered. When asked by the Crown if there were things that she told the officers that were not true, in this statement A.K. admitted that there was. She testified that she told the officers that when Mr. Rahi had come to pick her up in Barrie to drive her to her dad’s place, he took her to the house of a man who raped her. When asked by the Crown why she lied A.K. said at the time she did not think what she had already told police was enough and she was upset and had a lot of anger inside from the pain Mr. Rahi caused her. She was not thinking properly, and Mr. Rahi had hurt her really badly and taken advantage of her. She knew that Mr. Rahi had been arrested and was afraid that he would be released on bail, and she was terrified that Mr. Rahi was going to find her because he knew where her dad lived and was terrified that he would hurt her. She thought that if she made this up, he would get into more trouble.
211A.K. testified that this statement “really really bothered her” and that she thought about it a lot. She was not sure how to correct it and if she came forward, she was worried that everything she said would be thought to be a lie. She did not know what to do. She eventually got clean after treatment after a couple of years and the first thing she did was to call Detective Medeiros to try to fix this lie. She went in to speak to him and told him about the lie and told him the truth.
212In cross-examination A.K. admitted that this lie was very serious and that “it haunted me for a long time. I just could not stop thinking about it”. She knew police might investigate this but did not think someone would be arrested because this was a “made up person”. She admitted that it did cross her mind that Mr. Rahi could be arrested for something he did not do and that she wanted him to because “he hurt me so so bad” and she “wanted him to suffer like he made me suffer”. She was also “heavily using” at the time “trying to block out what he did to me”. She was experiencing a lot of emotions at the time, and she admitted that she let her emotions override what she knew was right at the time.
213A.K. arranged to return to the police in March 2022, on her own initiative and she gave her March 2022 police statement to the same officers to as she put it “to come clean” about the fact that she had lied about the alleged rape by another man. I agree with Crown counsel that the fact A.K. arranged this interview with police of her own accord is important to my assessment of the impact of this admitted significant lie on her overall credibility and the truth about her core allegations.
214Towards the end of her evidence A.K. admitted that she has never faced a criminal charge for giving a false statement to police including this false allegation. When it was suggested that she has never faced any “consequence” she testified as follows:
The consequence that I face is the fact that coming forward was the hardest thing that I've ever done. To come forward and tell someone who has worked so hard on my case that I have lied about something was one the hardest things I've ever done. It took a lot of courage, and it took a lot of strength to be able to sit there and admit that I lied.
Q. But sitting here today, you have no reason to believe that if you were to continue lying to police or to this Court that you would face any consequences, right?
A. No, because I know for a fact that what he did to me was wrong.
Q. But that's not the only reason, right? It's also because you've never faced a consequence before, right?
A. I faced the consequence of having that lie haunt me. You have no idea how hard it was to come forward and admit what I said was a lie. I was so scared that no one would believe me, that what Kal did to me, I was so scared that he would get away with what he did to me because of that one lie. It took everything inside of me to come forward and admit that. And I knew there was a possibility I could get charged and I understood that, and I would accept that charge. I have worked so hard in this case to help me, and I was so embarrassed, you know, I hated myself so much that I lied to them about this because they worked so hard.
215I found this evidence very compelling. While testifying about this fabricated sexual assault, A.K. appeared to have a visceral and emotional reaction to the idea that the police had worked so hard on her case only for her to ruin it by telling this lie. She appeared very upset and genuinely remorseful about having lied to the police. I found her demeanour consistent with her testimony about her regret about telling police this lie. It was also consistent with her evidence that I have already referred to about being scared because she had forgotten things and that as a result Mr. Rahi would get away with what he had done to her. This does not excuse the false allegation A.K. made about the lie she told police, in the first place, but I accept her evidence that it was very difficult to voluntarily go to police to tell them that she had lied.
216Defence counsel put it to A.K. that she fabricated the allegation about this other man raping her because she was worried police would start digging and find sexual service advertisements before Lava was stolen and the advertisements from April 2017 and that police would figure out that she had made up that Mr. Rahi had forced her to do this. A.K. denied these suggestions and testified that it disgusted her to even hear that. A.K. then dug in and refused to respond to further suggestions that her biggest motivation in making this false allegation about another man was that police would discover that she had made up the allegation about Mr. Rahi being involved in her sex work. She acknowledged that she was in a very serious trial but explained that “it’s really hurting me to hear you say that”. As I have already stated, I understand this reaction to these types of questions although I do not suggest that Defence counsel was not properly cross-examining A.K. – she was doing her job.
217In cross-examination A.K. denied that she lied to police about this at that time because she knew Mr. Rahi had a trial coming up. She testified that she did not know when he had a trial. She also said that no one told her to come forward to say that she had lied. A.K. linked coming forward to having had treatment and getting clean. She was trying to put her life in order to hopefully live a clean life and to be happy, she had to tell the police about it. A.K. testified that she had made a lot of mistakes when she was using drugs, and she did a lot of horrible things to her family and friends, and this was one of those mistakes that “I regret it to this day”.
218It is the defence position that throughout the cross examination of A.K. there were numerous other instances of dishonesty that undermine A.K.’s credibility and reliability,
219Defence counsel submits that A.K. lied to police when they came to visit her in the Lindsay jail, when she denied knowing anything about Lava and in her February 2017 statement when police were investigating the theft of Lava, telling them that she stole Lava. I have already reviewed A.K.’s evidence about why she told police that she was the one who took Lava, and I accept her evidence that she did not tell the police the truth because of her fear of Mr. Rahi and not wanting to get him into trouble with police. As for the statement when she was in the Lindsay jail, this too is consistent with her fear of Mr. Rahi at the time.
220Defence counsel also relies on further lies in the February 2017 police statement that A.K. admitted:
a) by telling police that she had no reason to lie and was telling the truth,
b) by telling police that she would pass a polygraph,
c) by telling police that they were selling Lava to a lady on Kijiji was a lie
d) by telling police that she “had only seen Mr. Rahi twice” and described them as “friends” and
e) by telling police that she threw her phone out the window on the way to Quebec, an issue I have already considered.
221With respect to these admitted lies in A.K.’s February 2017 statement, I note that it was the first video statement and was taken a few days after A.K. was released from the Lindsay jail after having spent four days in custody there.
222A.K. was taken in cross-examination to her statement that after they took Lava, she only saw Mr. Rahi five times for things like lunch and that they were just friends. A.K. admitted that this was a lie and that she did not go into what happened between them. A.K. testified that this was not malicious, and that she was really confused then about what had happened and how to tell police about it. She agreed she had the opportunity to tell police at that time but testified that she was really scared. She agreed that lying to police was wrong, that it was a criminal offence that she was under oath and that there was no excuse for it. At that point she did not know what to do or what to tell them. I accept that explanation. This statement was not taken very long after A.K. testified that she got away from Mr. Rahi.
223As for the admitted lie about selling Lava to a lady on Kijiji, A.K. admitted this lie did not make sense but she was not asked why she told this lie in cross-examination. When she was asked that question in re-examination Defence counsel objected. In my view the question was proper, but time was running out for A.K.’s examination and so the Crown simply abandoned the question. I do not know what A.K. would have said had she been permitted to answer this question, but I do not expect her answer would be any different than the other lies she admitted concerning the theft of Lava. She was still afraid of Mr. Rahi at that time she made those statements.
224It was not until her May 2018 that A.K. disclosed her allegations of sexual assault and trafficking to police. She also gave as a reason for this delay that she was disgusted with herself, embarrassed and scared that Mr. Rahi would hurt her. I have also reviewed A.K.’s evidence that although she was alone at times she did not try to escape from Mr. Rahi until she was in Newmarket, a city she knew and where her dad lived. I accept A.K.’s evidence in this regard which is the same evidence as to why she went ahead and provided sexual services in the first place when she did not want to.
225Furthermore, the law is clear that there is no inviolable rule or “right way” for how a victim of sexual violence, including sex workers, should behave during or after a sexual offence. Common examples used in the past were: fighting back, fleeing, and avoiding the perpetrator. It is also a myth that a victim of a sexual offence will immediately report. The fact A.K. did not flee from Mr. Rahi earlier and that she delayed in reporting these allegations to police should not be used as a reason to discount her credibility: R v Kruk, 2024 SCC 7, at para 41, R. v. D.D., 2000 SCC 43, [2000] 2 S.C.R. 275 at para. 65 and R v Barton 2019 SCC 33, at para. 1. In the same way, it cannot be argued that because A.K. reached out to Mr. Rahi for assistance to help her get to Newmarket from Barrie that suggests she is not telling the truth about her allegations of sexual assault and human trafficking.
226As for telling police she had told the truth and would pass a polygraph, A.K.’s admission that these statements were not true does not add anything to this defence argument given her admission that she had lied about certain matters to police.
227A.K. also admitted that she lied to police in her August 2018 statement and Defence counsel relies on the following:
a) by telling them that she “never” used drugs before meeting Mr. Rahi. She admitted this was a lie and the defence relies on A.K.’s evidence on this point as an example of wordsmithing that I will come to, and,
b) by telling police that she followed Mr. Rahi into a convenience store when he purchased Bitcoin, instead of staying in the car (more accurately the defence position is that both statements are lies, but in any event, they are an inconsistent detail). This is an inconsistency about a “detail” that I have already reviewed and found is not important.
228With respect to A.K.’s statement that she “never” used drugs before meeting Mr. Rahi, she admitted this was a lie in cross examination. The defence submits that beyond the clear impeachment on this point, this is the best example where A.K. did her best to evade allegations of dishonesty, by justifying word choices. I will come to the other examples relied upon, but it is submitted that in every instance where her prior statement was not a clear impeachment, but rather something with multiple interpretations, A.K. “routinely had an excuse or reason to wiggle out of the inconsistency”.
229On the issue of drug use, in her examination in chief, A.K. admitted to having drug problems prior to Mr. Rahi. She testified that she had smoked marijuana since the age of 13 or 14 and that she started using alcohol when she was 11 or 12 years old. A.K. also testified that she occasionally used cocaine before she met Mr. Rahi but then it was to have fun not to block things out or to allow her to do things she would not be able to do if not under the influence, when she used cocaine while she was with Mr. Rahi. She admitted that alcohol was a bit of a problem when she stayed with T.J. in October 2016 but denied using cocaine then.
230In cross-examination A.K. admitted that in her August 2018 statement to police, she told police that she thought she used cocaine once when she was in high school. She agreed this was not true and that she used cocaine more than once but seized on the fact she told police “maybe” once in high school, which she testified at trial was different than telling police she only used it once. A.K. also rejected the suggestion that she was trying to minimize her use of drugs to the police. I did find this to be an evasive answer and, as submitted by Defence counsel, it was an attempt by A.K. to wiggle out of the inconsistency by claiming that the word “maybe” implied that it could have been more, and not “only once”. However, A.K. then readily admitted that in another portion of this statement she lied when she told police she had not used any drugs prior to meeting Mr. Rahi. I appreciate this was a more difficult prior statement for A.K. to qualify but given how readily A.K. admitted this lie and given her evidence at trial about her drug use, I am not as concerned about what may have been evasive at the outset of this exchange.
231Defence counsel submits that this example should call into question every other instance in which A.K. “wiggled out of a seeming inconsistency” and that this illuminates her willingness and ability to attempt to justify an inconsistency through wordsmithing. It calls into question every other explanation she gave to explain away an inconsistency and make it not an impeachment. I will now consider that submission.
Defence submission about alleged incredible explanations and wordsmithing
232The defence relies on several exchanges with A.K. in cross-examination as further evidence of A.K. attempting to “wiggle out of” inconsistencies between her evidence at trial and prior police statements. I have already dealt with some of them and so will now consider those I have not reviewed.
233As I have already set out when A.K. was asked about the reason she lied about being the one to physically go into T.J. home and steal Lava as opposed to saying Mr. Rahi did, she testified the reason was she “didn’t want to get Kal in trouble”. In cross-examination she also stated that because they were both there “technically … going over and doing it is no different from the person who sat in the car, we were both guilty”. When asked if it was not a lie to police that she went in because “technically” they were both there A.K. responded, “I’m saying I said that because we were both guilty at the time.” Given that elsewhere A.K. readily admitted lying about her statement to police when she told police she was the one who went into T.J.’s house and took Lava, I am not sure what to make of what A.K. added here but given she readily admitted it was a lie I do not find this as significant as suggested by Defence counsel, particularly when I consider A.K.’s other admissions of not telling police the truth about Lava.
234In court, A.K. testified that Mr. Rahi’s wife showed her photos of herself from the time she had done escorting. She was taken to a portion of her statement to police when she said that Mr. Rahi's wife had shown her “modelling” photos on Facebook, and she was confronted by the fact that she did not say anything about the wife having engaged in escorting herself. A.K. explained that to her, saying modeling photos would have been the same thing as escorting photos and she confirmed that her memory at the time of the statement was closer to the events and that she would have been trying to tell the truth. The defence challenges the fact that at trial A.K. maintained that the photos she described in court as ‘escorting” would be the same as her describing in her statement seeing modelling photos. I have no evidence about the content of the photos A.K. was shown. If for example they showed Mr. Rahi’s wife in lingerie, then her evidence makes complete sense. I therefore do not find this exchange adversely impacts A.K.’s credibility.
235The defence also relies on evidence from A.K. that there were only two versions told to police about where Lava was taken. First, the one she maintained as truth which was that they took Lava to Mr. Rahi’s residence right away. Second, the version she agreed was a lie which was that Lava was sold to a lady from Kijiji. Defence counsel put what is characterized as a third version from A.K.’s May 2018 statement to her in cross-examination, namely taking Lava to a “buddy’s” house in Montreal. A.K. denied this was a third version and instead for the first time in cross-examination described another road trip with Lava to a “buddy’s” house coming from Ontario, that she had not previously described. Defence counsel relies on the phone records from October 31, 2016, to support the inference that it was this third version of where Mr. Rahi and A.K. went when arriving in Quebec that is true, as there are numerous records from both phones in Laval and Montreal on October 31, and the phone records only move to the Drummondville area on November 1, 2016. As I understand it, the defence position is that Lava was never taken to Mr. Rahi’s home.
236A lot of time on this issue was spent in cross-examination. In her May 2018 statement A.K. told police that after they took Lava, they brought Lava to an unknown address in Quebec, that Lava got into a fight with a dog that was living there and injured that dog badly and so Mr. Rahi had to take Lava back to his house. It was put to her that this statement was not entirely accurate as her evidence had been that they brought Lava to Mr. Rahi’s house first. A.K. said this statement was true as they brought Lava to this address and then brought her back to his house i.e. Lava had already been to Mr. Rahi’s house. She was then taken to a later part of this statement where A.K. was telling the officers about travelling to Quebec after taking Lava and she admitted that when asked where they went immediately when they went into Quebec, she said that they went to Mr. Rahi’s friend’s house in Montreal to drop Lava off. A.K. responded that a few lines up in this portion of her statement she also said they drove “back towards Quebec” which she said obviously meant they were in Quebec before. She said she was confused, and she insisted that she knows what happened and that they went to Mr. Rahi’s house first with Lava and then dropped Lava off at this friend’s house in Montreal and that they did not go “immediately” to his friend’s house once in Quebec.
237This area was revisited again later in cross-examination. Defence counsel put to A.K. that in chief she mentioned only one road trip with Lava to Quebec. She then was asked about the trip from Drummondville to Montreal to Mr. Rahi’s friend’s house. This was before she first saw customers in Montreal. She was then taken back to the same passages in her May 2018 statement but starting earlier. A.K. admitted that after talking about the stop in Whitby on first road trip from Ontario to Quebec, she was asked where they went “immediately”, and she told police they went to friend’s house to drop off Lava. She agreed with Defence counsel that was not true, but she said that it was not a lie. A.K. agreed this statement was not correct and said” “I don’t know why I said that I just know what happened. What I say today is what happened”. She admitted she did not have a good recollection of going to friend’s house and that she was “trying to figure out why I made that statement” and she guessed she must have been confused about another trip. She reiterated that the only trip she remembered with Lava was to Mr. Rahi’s house and then to this friend’s house. In cross-examination A.K. also testified that she has no idea how long Lava was at Mr. Ravi’s house, but Mr. Rahi’s wife did tell him to get Lava out of the house because Lava was T.J.’s dog.
238I am not able to reconcile the phone records with when Mr. Rahi and A.K. first arrived at his house but I see no reason why A.K. would lie about taking Lava to his home and the reaction of Mr. Rahi’s wife to Lava being there. This is a detail she could genuinely be confused about. As for any alleged wordsmithing. A.K. was clearly trying to, as she put it “figure out” why she made a statement that I note was over six years ago, about a detail she did not have a good memory about. As the court said in GMC, at para. 38, “it is human nature to try to make sense out of bits and pieces of memories about an event, and this may impact the accuracy of a witness’s testimony concerning events”. For these reasons I do not find that this exchange impacts adversely on A.K.’s credibility and furthermore, what ultimately happened to Lava is not important to the issues that I must resolve.
239The final issue raised by Defence counsel is the question of whether A.K. discussed her evidence during cross examination when she admitted that she spoke with her mother during the trial. On the last day of her evidence, A.K. volunteered in cross-examination that she had been talking to her mother and that her mother brought up in their conversation her memory that A.K. had tried to call her when she was in Quebec. A.K. testified that her mother told her that she knew something was going on and her mother reminded her of a call her mother made to her and told her that she was sorry she could not help her. When Defence counsel challenged A.K. on the fact she had been told not to discuss her evidence with anyone A.K. said that she could not control what her mother said and that it was her mother who brought this up. She testified that she was trying to rebuild her relationship with her mother whom she had not had a relationship with for years. Defence counsel submits that A.K. was resistant to the questioning and defensive and evasive when asked to give her evidence about this conversation. I disagree. In any event I find that this conversation did not impact on any of the substance of A.K.’s evidence.
Possibility of Collusion and Fabrication
240I have already explained why based on the evidence of T.J. I do not accept any suggestion that T.J. and A.K. colluded to fabricate allegations of sexual assault and the trafficking of A.K. against Mr. Rahi. I will now review the submissions that are based on the evidence of A.K.
241When it was suggested to A.K. that she did not tell police earlier about her allegations of sexual assault and trafficking by Mr. Rahi because Mr. Rahi had nothing to do with her sex work, A.K. responded that she found that “very very offensive” because Mr. Rahi ruined her life and that she lived every day with Mr. Rahi “doing that shit”, that he hurt and scarred her. Defence counsel then suggested that Mr. Rahi did drive her to Quebec, but that she posted her own advertisements, did her own sex work and Mr. Rahi did not take any of her money. A.K. did not get very emotional the first time this suggestion was put to her but disagreed with all these suggestions. Defence counsel then put to A.K. that she only told police about her allegations of sexual assault and trafficking after T.J. harassed her to go to the police and that is when she threw Mr. Rahi under the bus for the theft of Lava. A.K. denied giving this statement to get T.J. to leave her alone – “absolutely not”.
242A.K. was then taken to her February 2017 statement where she told police that by coming forward what she wanted was T.J. to stop messaging her and harassing her and that she wanted her to leave her alone. It was put to her that she had just lied in court. A.K. denied it was a lie. I accept that evidence. First, if she wanted to throw Mr. Rahi under the bus at that time, she would have told police what she ultimately did later, namely that he was the one who went inside the house and took the dog. Furthermore, based on the evidence T.J. was calling Mr. Rahi and A.K. repeatedly to find out what happened to Lava. It is clear that is what A.K. was referring to by wanting to get T.J. off her back.
243A.K. also admitted that on a call with T.J. on January 20, 2017, T.J. threatened that she would never help her again if she did not make a statement about Lava, and assured her she would not get in trouble, and that if she did T.J. would bail her out. In that call A.K. agreed that she told T.J. she was there when Mr. Rahi stole Lava but didn’t go in herself. T.J. confirmed that such threats were made and that she took A.K. to give the February 2017 statement. A.K. did not recall T.J. bringing her in to give this statement and I do not recall her being asked if this threat by T.J. was a sufficient incentive to lie about her core allegations against Mr. Rahi. In any event I do not find that is possible because when A.K. did speak to police about Lava, she did not tell them what T.J. wanted in order to have Mr. Rahi charged with the theft of Lava, which T.J. thought was a way she could get Lava back. Instead, she said that she was the one who took Lava.
244A.K. testified that she eventually told T.J. about the fact that what happened in the kitchen was not consensual. She denied the suggestion that it was T.J. who told her to make up a lie about Mr. Rahi sexually assaulting and trafficking her. I accept that evidence and refer back to the findings I have made in connection with the evidence of T.J..
245On the defence claim of a possibility of collusion between T.J. and A.K. I have already explained why, considering the evidence of T.J. I find she did not collude or coach A.K. with respect to her sexual assault allegations. The same reasons apply to A.K. and I accept her evidence that T.J. did not suggest she make her allegations of sexual assault and trafficking up. If they colluded their evidence would at least have been similar on the alleged sexual assaults that A.K. said happened in T.J.’s home and it was not.
246Furthermore, as I have stated, I also agree with Crown counsel that it defies coincidence that T.J. conspired with A.K. to get revenge on Mr. Rahi by fabricating human trafficking allegations or coached her to testify with such a degree of detail that somehow matches up with K.H.’s experience when neither of them knew K. H. A.K. first told the police about her allegations of human trafficking in her May 2018 statement, six months before Mr. Rahi was arrested for trafficking K.H.
247Defence counsel submits that this submission does not consider the details that the defence alleges are not sufficiently similar for the reasons I will come to when I deal with the similar fact evidence. It is also submitted that if this Court finds that K.H.’s credibility and reliability are such that her evidence is similarly frail, then the value is significantly diminished, and the possibility of coincidence remains a live issue. I do not accept these submissions. Even without considering the defence argument on the similar fact evidence in detail, simply reviewing the decision of Justice Roberts and her ruling on the similar fact evidence, there are sufficient similarities between the evidence of A.K. and K.H. to rule out this argument particularly when it is admitted by the defence that there is no evidence of collusion between A.K. and K.H. and K.H. did not make her allegations until six months after May 2018 when A.K. first made her allegations.
248The defence submits that because of the problems with the evidence of T.J. and A.K. this court cannot discount the “possibility” that T.J. did as was suggested and coerced A.K. to fabricate allegations. It is further submitted that even if the evidence is not sufficient to actively find collusion, the opportunity for it is clear. I do not accept that submission. Clearly it is not enough that there was an opportunity for collusion. Furthermore, a possibility that there was collusion is not enough unless it raises a reasonable doubt. I find that there was no collusion between A.K. and T.J. with respect to A.K.’s allegations and find there is no reasonable doubt raised with respect to the credibility and reliability of the evidence of A.K. because of these submissions.
249While considering all of the submissions made by Defence counsel that I have referred to I must approach A.K.’s evidence with caution and carefully assess her credibility and the reliability of her evidence, I have absolutely no doubt that she did not come to court to give this evidence because of any loyalty to or threat from T.J.. I also have no doubt that T.J. did not suggest or coach A.K. into making the allegations about sexual assault and sex trafficking by Mr. Rahi.
The Law applicable to the credibility assessment of A.K.
250The law is clear that this court can accept some, all or none of A.K.’s evidence. I have already considered the guidance from the Ontario Court of Appeal on well-known principles of how someone who has experienced a traumatic event can react and recall that could explain some aspects of A.K.’s evidence. As I have said those principles are relevant with respect to many of the inconsistencies in A.K.’s evidence in cross-examination that she did not volunteer in her evidence in chief. Many can be explained because A.K. had no memory of an event or making the statement in question to police. Accordingly, many of what the defence submitted are lies, even when A.K. admitted the statement was a lie, were in my view more appropriately considered mistakes because of the trauma A.K. alleges she experienced. In my view the matters A.K. was mistaken about do not undermine any of her allegations of sexual assault or trafficking by Mr. Rahi.
251However, I must still consider the fact that A.K. has admitted that she lied to police on several occasions, particularly with respect to the rape allegation which was a very significant false allegation. The fact that A.K. did tell deliberate lies to police does not necessarily render the balance of her testimony incredible. I have accepted A.K.’s explanations for why she deliberately lied to police even with respect to the significant lie about the alleged rape by someone with Mr. Rahi. Her explanations do not excuse the lies but considered from her viewpoint at the time, they are understandable and to some extent can also be explained by the trauma she experienced as a result of what she alleges happened when she was with Mr. Rahi. She was still afraid of him, and he knew where she lived. As such they lose their power to raise a reasonable doubt regarding Mr. Rahi’s guilt. R. v. R(C) 2010 ONCA 176, at para 35.
252In R v. R.K., 2002 CarswellOnt 5993 (Ont. S.C.), aff’d 2004 CarswellOnt 3877 (Ont. C.A.) the trial judge accepted the complainant’s explanation for earlier falsehoods and found that those inconsistencies did not bear on the central issue in the case. Doherty J.A., speaking for the court, upheld the conviction, and found that the trial judge was alive to the complainant’s prior lies under oath and her explanation for those lies and that it was the trial judge's job to determine the effect of that evidence on her credibility, which he did. See also R. v. Perrone, 2014 MBCA 74, 383 D.L.R. (4th) 683, at para 16; aff’d 2015 SCC 8, [2015] 1 S.C.R. 473, where both the Manitoba Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada upheld a conviction where the complainant lied under oath on two occasions about material facts.
253I have accepted A.K.’s explanation for what in my view were in fact lies to police at the time the statements were made. In each case she has admitted in this court that what she told police was not true. I also find that she went back to police to voluntarily tell them she had lied about the rape allegation and that she admitted in her evidence before this court that she lied to police despite her fear that because of these admissions all of her evidence would not be believed. Her courage to readily acknowledge these misstatements and deliberate lies provides some mitigation of the serious impact of the lies in the first place and their impact on the credibility and reliability of A.K.’s evidence in this court. Furthermore, most significantly, none of the lies that Defence counsel relies upon undermine A.K.’s core allegations of sexual assault and human trafficking and sexual exploitation by Mr. Rahi. Furthermore, as I will come to her evidence with respect that she was trafficked by Mr. Rahi is supported by independent corroborative evidence.
Conclusion on reliability and credibility of A.K. and her trial evidence
254As the Court of Appeal recently held in R. v. E.A.P., 2022 ONCA 134, at para 18: “strong indicia of candour and forthrightness in a witness’s testimony, are positive features of that witness’s evidence, capable of supporting a finding that the witness's evidence is credible.”
255A.K. came to court as a woman suffering from serious drug addiction and was expected to give evidence over several days of what she alleges were extremely traumatic events that she still testified that she still suffers from. She made no attempt to hide her own frailties and in particular her substance abuse. Defence counsel skillfully cross-examined her over several days but only exposed what in my view are all relatively minor inconsistencies in her evidence. A.K. did fabricate a very serious allegation about a rape by a person other than Mr. Rahi but she voluntarily returned to police to tell them about that lie despite her fear of the consequences. I believe A.K.’s explanation for why she made up such a serious allegation and have accepted her explanation for the other less serious lies to police about details peripheral to her core allegations. A.K. clearly found the entire experience of giving evidence very difficult but she persevered over the course of several days. I found her evidence, particularly on the core allegations very compelling. Overall, she was candid, forthright and extremely apologetic about her drug use during the trial, her unsuccessful attempts not to use drugs during the trial, the mistakes she had made in her statements to police and the lies she told police. She was also completely consistent on her core allegations of what she alleges Mr. Rahi did to her, notwithstanding the fact she has given several prior statements to police and the fact that almost nine years has passed since these events. I do not accept the submission by Defence counsel that A.K. did not respect the solemnity of this court proceeding or her affirmation to tell the truth.
256Although I accept that because of the concerns raised by the defence with respect to the credibility and reliability of A.K.’s evidence that I should treat it with caution, I have dealt with those concerns. Furthermore, for the reasons I have given I found A.K.’s evidence on the core allegations to be consistent and compelling. I find that on these core allegations her evidence is credible and reliable. I recognize that it is not enough that I believe A.K. I must be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that her evidence and all the other evidence proves the guilt of Mr. Rahi on the charges in the Indictment beyond a reasonable doubt. I also recognize that an absence of evidence can also raise a reasonable doubt. Furthermore, save to the extent the evidence overlaps, a finding of guilt on one count does not mean Mr. Rahi should be found guilty of another. Each count must be considered based on the evidence relevant to that count.
257As I will now review, A.K.’s evidence on her core allegations of sex trafficking by Mr. Rahi are corroborated by other evidence. Although as the defence submits, I do not have hotel or banking records or surveillance evidence that might exist in another case, I have the uncontested evidence and other admitted evidence that in my view corroborates A.K.’s evidence.
THE CONTENT OF THE GROUP 1 ADVERTISEMENTS FOR SEXUAL SERVICES
258The fact that there are advertisements for A.K.’s sexual services is confirmatory evidence that there was sex trade work in the locations stated on the advertisements. Defence counsel does not submit otherwise but it is the defence position that A.K. was the one who posted the advertisements and that the Crown has not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Rahi knew she was doing so and providing sexual services.
259Accordingly, a key issue to be determined is who posted the Group 1 advertisements for sexual services. The advertisements throughout this period all use some of the same photos of A.K. They generally follow the same language and format with the one exception of whether it was Angel’s first or second time in a location. On their face they were likely posted by the same person and could have been posted by either A.K. or Mr. Rahi.
(a) Group 1A – the advertisements posted between October 23 and October 29, 2016
260It is the position of the defence that this group of advertisements, which were posted before Lava was stolen, and the Group 2 advertisements posted in April 2017, after A.K. left Mr. Rahi, are perhaps the strongest evidence weakening A.K.’s credibility. Defence counsel submits that this is because these sexual service advertisements both “predate and postdate the time frame that this court can logically find Mr. Rahi and A.K. were together both in Ontario and Quebec.” Defence counsel submits that this supports the defence position that A.K. was the one who was posting the advertisements for sexual services and not Mr. Rahi. I will review the content of these advertisements in some detail to determine if that assists in determining this issue.
October 23, 2016
261Three advertisements for Angel were posted on October 23, 2016, all in Montreal: one on Eroticmugshots and two on Backpage. The Backpage advertisement states the location as just the city of Montreal. They all state that it was Angel’s first time in Montreal and are for out calls only. For now, the specific details of these advertisements are not important. The wording in the advertisements varies but there is enough similarity in all the advertisements to suggest that they were posted by one person which could be either Mr. Rahi or A.K. What is relevant in my view are the photographs in these advertisements and, in particular, whether A.K. is wearing red or black lingerie and whether the advertisements include pictures of women who are not A.K.
262The photographs in these advertisements show one picture of A.K. with her legs up a wall in red lingerie while her torso is on a grey blanket and one picture of A.K. with her whole body lying on a grey blanket and two different pictures of A.K. in red lingerie standing next to a wall looking towards a window that has a white blind that is closed, light green drapes and a white baseboard underneath. In both cases she is angled away from the camera l so some of her chest can be seen but more of her chest can be seen in one of the pictures. In each picture, to the extent A.K.’s shoes can be seen, they are black lace up high heeled shoes. If find that the window in each picture is the same and the colour of the wall in all these pictures appears the same and it is a colour I would describe as a beige with some green tones. I find that all these photographs appear to have been taken in the same room.
263When one of the advertisements was shown to A.K in cross-examination and she was told it was posted on the Eroticmugshots website A.K. testified that she did not know about this website and only knew about Backpage. When it was put to A.K. that she posted the advertisement herself in Montreal before she went there with Mr. Rahi, she said it was impossible because Mr. Rahi’s wife took the photos, and he posted the advertisements. She became very upset and kept repeating that this was impossible. When another advertisement posted on this day on Backpage was shown to A.K. and it was put to her by Defence counsel that she went to Quebec some other time without Mr. Rahi before Lava went missing, A.K. responded that that was ridiculous and that it was impossible because Mr. Rahi’s wife took the photographs. When it was put to her that someone other than Mr. Rahi or his wife took the photos A.K. responded that “I live with these memories every day and you can stay there and say that, but I am the one that has to remember this”.
October 27, 2016
264Three advertisements for Angel were posted on October 27, 2016, two in Hamilton and one in Guelph. They each state that it was Angel’s first time in town. One advertisement was posted on Eroticmugshots and two on Backpage and those advertisements stated in the advertisement itself that the locations were Toronto, Guelph, Hamilton, Mississauga and Oakville. Each advertisement stated in calls/out calls. This was the first reference to in calls which must have meant that A.K. was in a hotel room at this time. The fact this advertisement stated in calls is consistent with A.K.’s evidence that sometimes Mr. Rahi rented a hotel room where she saw customers.
265These advertisements show some of the same pictures I have already referred to of A.K. standing and as well as photographs of A.K. in black lingerie, lying on what appears to be the same grey blanket as the photographs I have referred to when A.K. was in red lingerie, lying on a grey back and having her legs up the wall. They also include a new photograph A.K. admitted was of her that shows A.K. wearing a black bra and facing a wall with her back to the camera. Another new photograph shows A.K. wearing grey socks and black lingerie lying on the grey blanket that seems identical to the grey blanket in the photograph of A.K. wearing red lingerie. The colour of the wall in the photographs of the red lingerie and black lingerie is also the same, consistent with my view they were taken in the same room.
266The photograph that shows the socks A.K. was wearing is significant because as I have stated, once she noticed those socks in the pictures shown to her by Defence counsel (the socks are more visible in some of the photographs than others) A.K. remembered that it was Mr. Rahi’s wife who gave her the socks, and she specifically remembered being on the bed wearing the socks. Once she realized this, she testified that the photograph of her wearing black lingerie was taken on the same day as those of her in red lingerie. I found this evidence very compelling. The entire exchange in cross-examination of the number of photo shoots and the different colours of lingerie and whether A.K.’s hair was straightened or not confused her at first, which in my view is understandable given the delay. This was another good example of what the court said in GMC, at para. 38, in that A.K. was clearly looking at all the different photographs of her and she was trying to put it all together. Furthermore, for reasons I will come to her evidence that all of the photographs were taken at the same time makes sense.
267These advertisements included a photograph of a black woman’s face with dark hair with purple streaks that is clearly not A.K. and a woman in a white Nike sports bra and black leggings, that A.K testified was not her. That evidence was not challenged. It was not suggested that she knew who either of these women were. I find this significant as it makes no sense that A.K. would include pictures of women that she did not know if she posted the advertisements, particularly the one of the black woman which clearly was not her. On the other hand, if these advertisements were posted by Mr. Rahi, given A.K.’s evidence about the time she did a duo, that could explain this.
268When Defence counsel showed A.K. one of the advertisements posted on October 27, 2016, and put to her that it was posted before Lava was missing, despite an objection by Crown counsel, A.K kept saying this was impossible and she got very upset. The objection was that Defence counsel incorrectly put to A.K. that this advertisement was posted on Backpage when in fact it was posted on Eroticmugshots which A.K. had not been asked about by this point in her evidence. Defence counsel’s error did not matter and in my view A.K.’s reaction was clearly one of genuine surprise.
269After the cross-examination of A.K. continued, it was put to her that T.J. said that Lava went missing on October 31, 2016, and that this advertisement was posted three days before that. To this A.K. said that was impossible and that she was at T’s house on that day and did not have a vehicle and did not know what escorting was until Mr. Rahi told her. She admitted that the photographs were of her but pointed out that there were photographs of other women as well. A.K. testified that she has no idea when they took Lava but that all of the escorting work started after Lava was taken because it started when Mr. Rahi drove her to Quebec, and it was impossible for it to happen before.
270When A.K. suggested that the date Lava was taken could be wrong, Defence counsel told her there was an agreement that the dates were authentic. To this she said: “it’s impossible, it’s impossible, I don’t know what to say” because she was still with T.J. at the time and these photographs were not taken until she went with Mr. Rahi to Quebec. I note that A.K. was clearly wrong about her recollection that she was still with T.J. because the evidence is clear that she and Mr. Rahi were kicked out of T.J.’s home a few days or a week before they came back to T.J. home when she was not there, and they took Lava. I will come to why this is important.
271When it was put to A.K. that she was the one who posted the advertisement and that she did so before she and Mr. Rahi went to Quebec, she insisted that the photos were taken by Mr. Rahi’s wife in Quebec and that she did not know what escorting was until Mr. Rahi posted the advertisement and that she knew nothing of the Eroticmugshots website.
October 29, 2016
272Three advertisements for Angel were posted on October 29, 2016, two for Niagara and one for Hamilton. They each state that it was Angel’s first time in town. One advertisement was posted on Eroticmugshots and two on Backpage and those advertisements stated in the advertisement itself that the locations were Hamilton, Niagara Regions, Sainte Catherine’s [sic]. Each advertisement stated out calls only.
273These advertisement shows some of the same photographs of A.K. that I have already referred to both in red and black lingerie. There is also a new photograph of A.K. with her hair pulled back in a ponytail, in a black bra with a white strap, facing a wall showing a bit of the right side of her chest. It is not possible to tell from all the other photographs of A.K. in a black bra whether this is a different bra as the straps of the others are covered by her hair. The wall looks like the same colour as all of the other photographs although this time it A.K. is standing next to a door as one of the hinges can be seen. These advertisements all include the photographs of the black woman.
274A.K. recalled being in Niagara but she could not recall specific dates.
October 30, 2016
275Two advertisements for Angel were posted on October 30, 2016, one for Niagara and one for Hamilton. They each state that it was Angel’s first time in town. Both advertisements were posted on Backpage, and those advertisements stated in the advertisement itself that the locations were Hamilton, Niagara Regions, and Sainte Catherine’s [sic]. Both advertisements stated in calls/out calls and so again A.K. must have been in a hotel room at this time. The photograph of the black woman appears in both advertisements. There are no new photographs of A.K.
October 31, 2016
276Two advertisements for Angel were posted on October 31, 2016, one for Niagara and one for Hamilton. They each state that it was Angel’s first time in town. Both advertisements were posted on Backpage, and those advertisements stated in the advertisement itself that the locations were Hamilton, Niagara Regions, and Sainte Catherine’s [sic]. Both advertisements stated in calls, which means that A.K. must still have been in a hotel room at this time. The photograph of the black woman appears in both advertisements. There are no new photographs of A.K.
(b) Group 1B – the advertisements posted between November 6 and 13, 2016.
November 5, 2016
277One advertisement for Angel was posted on this date on Backpage with the location as Montreal and then in the advertisement itself it stated the location as City of Montreal, Laval/North Shore, Longueuil/South Shore, Montreal. It states it is Angel’s second time in Montreal for out calls only. There are three photographs of A.K., none of which are new and the same photograph of the black woman.
278A.K. had no explanation for why this advertisement and the ones that followed stated it was her second time in Montreal. She said it was not something she wrote and that she did not see it the night Mr. Rahi posted the advertisement. A.K. testified that the first time she saw clients was in Montreal and she and Mr. Rahi stayed there for a number of days.
November 6, 2016
279Two advertisements for Angel were posted on this date on Backpage with the location as Montreal and then in the advertisement itself it states the location as City of Montreal, Laval/North Shore, Longueuil/South Shore, Montreal. They both state it is Angel’s second time in Montreal for out calls only. There are no new photographs of A.K. and the same photograph of the black woman. In addition, there is a photograph of a woman in a tight black short dress standing outside in high heeled black shoes that appear to be different than the ones A.K. is seen with wearing. A.K. stated this woman was not her and that evidence was not challenged. It was not suggested to A.K. that she knew this woman.
November 12, 2016
280This advertisement was posted on Backpage and shows the location as Niagara, Ontario for Angel, and says it is her second time in town. The advertisement itself shows the location as Hamilton, Niagara Region, Saint Catherine [sic]. This time both in calls and out calls were stated, again meaning A.K. must have been in a hotel room. There are no new photographs of A.K. and the advertisement includes the photograph of the black woman and the woman in the short black dress.
November 13, 2016
281There are four advertisements of Angel posted on November 13, 2016, and all state, “second time in town”. Two were posted just after midnight on Backpage with the location in the header of the advertisement stating Hamilton in one and Niagara in the other. The specific location stated in each advertisement was Hamilton, Niagara Region, Saint Catherine [sic] for in calls. There are no new photographs of A.K. in either of these advertisements which both include the photograph of the black woman and the woman in the short black dress.
282The other two advertisements were posted just before midnight on November 13, 2016, on Backpage with the location in the header of the advertisement stating Hamilton in one and Niagara in the other. The specific location stated in each advertisement was Hamilton, Niagara Region, Saint Catherine [sic] for in calls. There are no new photographs of A.K. in either of these advertisements which both include the photograph of the black woman and the woman in the short black dress.
(c) Group 2 – the advertisements posted in April 2017
283Three advertisements for Angel were posted on Backpage in April 2017: on April 3, 2017, April 7, 2017, and April 9, 2017. All were for out calls only and stated the location as Toronto in the header. The specific location varied, and the advertisements mentioned Mississauga, Brampton and the Durham region. They all stated: “second time in town”. All but one of the photographs were the same as those in the Group 1 advertisements. I do not recall any evidence about the picture taken from behind of a woman bent over against a wall but so I do not know if this is a picture of A.K. In my view given her evidence that these photographs were posted on Facebook by her boyfriend if it is of A.K., that is not important.
POLICE INVESTIGATION OF CELL PHONE RECORDS
284I have already referred to the admissions in the ASF and the fact that Mr. Rahi and A.K. each had phones they were using during October and November 2016 and my finding based on those cell phone records for those phones for the period from October 30, 2016, to and including November 8, 2016, they were in constant communication with each other.
285The maps produced with the cell phone records illustrate the movement of Mr. Rahi’s and A.K.’s cell phones and establish that every day from October 31, 2023 to November 8, 2023, both cell phones used cell towers in the same area, and many times their phones used the same cell towers at the same time. The maps establish that every single day in this period at some point Mr. Rahi’s cell phone used the same cell towers as A.K.’s phone.
286Defence counsel submitted that the phone records track phone locations and not people and that the fact that a phone associated to Mr. Rahi is travelling with A.K. “is not powerful evidence that he himself was always in possession of that phone”. It was never suggested in the cross-examination of A.K. that she was ever in possession of Mr. Rahi’s cell phone, and I cannot conceive of a reason why Mr. Rahi might give her his phone. Given my finding that they were in communication with each other using their cell phones in my view the only logical and reasonable inference from this evidence is that A.K. and Mr. Rahi were travelling together at least during this period of time. Furthermore, A.K. was relying on Mr. Rahi for transport and it was never suggested that she had a vehicle.
287I find that this cell phone evidence strongly corroborates A.K.’s evidence at least for this time period A.K. was constantly with Mr. Rahi and all they did was drive and that they travelled to different cities in Quebec and Ontario. When I stated to Defence counsel in closing submissions that there was no suggestion in the cross-examination of A.K. that she had her own means of transport, counsel advised that she was not challenging the fact that Mr. Rahi was driving A.K. to places to see clients but that does not mean he was aware of what she was doing. She submitted the main issue was Mr. Rahi’s knowledge.
288Given A.K.’s evidence as to the number of clients she was seeing, in my view even the fact alone that Mr. Rahi was driving A.K. to out calls and given this was likely happening in the early hours of the mornings based on some of the cell phone records, it is inconceivable that Mr. Rahi did not know A.K. was performing sexual services for customers at their locations and he must have known he was helping her with it.
289It is significant that these maps establish that A.K.’s and Mr. Rahi’s cell phones were in the St. Catharines’ area from midnight on October 31, 2016, until noon that day and then travelling east and arriving in the Toronto area at 1:00 pm where they stayed for a period of time and then continuing east to Whitby and arriving in the Kingston area by 5:00 p.m. On October 31, 2023, there was cell phone activity in Kingston as they travelled east on their way to Quebec which is consistent with A.K.’s evidence that she called her mother in Kingston when she and Mr. Rahi were driving to Quebec with Lava. They then continued travelling east and arrived in the Montreal and Drummondville area after midnight on November 1st where they remained until about 1:00 p.m. on November 2.In this time frame they travelled to the Drummondville area which This evidence of cell phone activity on October 31 to November 2, 2016, strongly corroborates A.K.’s evidence that she was with Mr. Rahi on the day that T.J.’s reported Lava was taken and her evidence that she and Mr. Rahi took Lava and drove to Quebec.
290The maps show that Mr. Rahi and A.K. then travelled west through the Cornwall, Brockville, Kingston, and Belleville areas arriving in the Brampton area on the night of November 2. They stayed in that area into the morning of November 3. They then travelling eastbound again through the Oshawa, Coburg, Belleville and Napanee areas on the morning of November 3, arriving in the Kingston area by mid-day. They continued and reached Cornwall that afternoon. They were in the Montreal area late afternoon and evening of November 3, arriving back in the Drummondville area that night. On November 4 to November 8, they were back and forth between the Drummondville and Montreal area and by late in the day of November 8, they were heading back west.
291This evidence corroborates A.K.’s that she went Mr. Rahi’s home more than once and her evidence that she was continuously with Mr. Rahi after Lava was taken and that she travelled with him in Ontario and Quebec between October 31 and November 8, 2016. Their travel routes included eastern Ontario, and they spent the most time in that period in Drummondville and Montreal.
292The Crown sets out in her written submissions from the cell phone records three examples that show that Mr. Rahi’s and A.K.’s phones were using the same cell tower and on those occasions advertisements for A.K.’s sexual services were also posted that corroborates this finding. I will not set out those examples in detail but based on this evidence I make the following findings:
a) between midnight and 1 p.m. on October 31, 2016, Mr. Rahi’s and Alana’s phones were in St. Catharines, and Mr. Rahi’s phone had 55 activities and Alana’s 25 activities from the same cell tower. Just after midnight advertisements for advertisements were posted both in Hamilton and Niagara, for A.K.’s sexual services for in calls in the Hamilton, Niagara Region, and Saint Catharines. The fact that the advertisement was for in calls makes it likely that A.K. had a hotel room since I find that A.K. was likely providing sexual services to clients responding to these advertisements. The fact that Mr. Rahi was travelling with A.K. and registering activity on his cell phone during the night supports the inference that and given the use of the same cell tower is consistent with her evidence that for in calls, Mr. Rahi would be in the room he had rented. Even if that is not the case, at the very least it is hard to imagine how he could not be aware that she was providing sexual services. This evidence is also consistent with A.K. evidence that Mr. Rahi forced her to provide sexual services in various locations in Ontario.
b) between midnight and 11:59 p.m. on November 5, 2016, both Mr. Rahi’s and Alana’s phone were the Montreal area. In the early hours, just after midnight they both used the same cell site in Montreal and throughout that day both phones used the same cell sites in the Drummondville area. In the evening, between 22:10 and 22:41 they returned to Montreal, and both used the same cell site in Montreal. Meanwhile, there was an active advertisement for A.K.’s sexual services for out calls only posted for Montreal, at 19:52 on the same date.
c) I agree with the Crown that this is another example where the only reasonable conclusion is that Mr. Rahi and A.K. are together. They started out in Montreal in the early hours of November 5, traveled to various locations near Drummondville during the day, and returned to Montreal in the evening, where there were advertisements posted for A.K.’s sexual services for out calls only. This of course confirms that is consistent with the fact that when advertisements for sexual services were posted A.K. was in that geographic area. As I have set out on November 5 and 6, 2016, the advertisements for A.K.’s sexual services stated she was offering her services for out calls in the Montreal area.
I have already explained why Mr. Rahi must have been with A.K. as they had to be travelling together. It is likely that A.K. was seeing customers because of those advertisements at the customer’s location. This evidence also corroborates A.K.’s evidence that at the very least Mr. Rahi was driving her to out calls as there is no suggestion that she had her own vehicle and as I have said Defence counsel does not challenge the fact that Mr. Rahi was driving A.K. to places to see clients. Given A.K.’s evidence as to the number of clients she was seeing, in my view even the fact alone that Mr. Rahi was driving A.K. to out calls and given this was likely happening in the early hours of the mornings based on some of the cell phone records, defies any any reasonable doubt that he did not know A.K. was performing sexual services for customers at their locations.
d) In the early hours of November 6, 2016, Mr. Rahi and Alana were still in Montreal, continuing from where they were in the evening of November 5. This entire time, there was an active advertisement for A.K.’s sexual services for out calls only posted the previous evening in Montreal. Their phones used the same cell tower between 00:31 and 01:54, and then between 01:31 and 02:18 they both use the same cell tower at a different location. Finally, between 04:44 and 05:32, they use the same cell tower in another location in Montreal. There was an advertisement for A.K.’s sexual services posted in Montreal just after midnight on November 6. Again, this evidence corroborates A.K.’s evidence that Mr. Rahi was driving her to out calls and given the time of day he must have known the reason.
e) During the day on November 6, 2016, Mr. Rahi’s and A.K.’s phones were in the Drummondville area, using five different cell sites, but in each case the same cell site, between 14:55 and 20:54, showing that they were continuously together during the day. Mr. Rahi and A.K. returned to Montreal in the evening of November 6 and their phones used the same cell site in one location at 22:34, and another location between 22:34 and 22:50, and finally the same cell site in a location between 23:07 and 23:25. Since the advertisements for A.K.’s sexual services were still active, this evidence suggests that at least in the evening, A.K. was providing sexual services to customers in Montreal and that Mr. Rahi was driving her to those customers for out calls.
ANALYSIS OF THE POSTING OF SEXUAL SERVICE ADVERTISEMENTS
293The Crown in her written submissions provided a chart which compares the dates and locations advertisements for sexual services for A.K that were posted on Backpage and Eroticmugshots from October 23, 2016, to November 13, 2016. I have already reviewed those advertisements. Although I will come to the issue of who posted these advertisements, the fact that these advertisements were posted is consistent with A.K.’s evidence that she did provide sexual services in various locations in Ontario and in Montreal.
WHO POSTED THE ADVERTISEMENTS FOR A.K.’S SEXUAL SERVICES?
294There is no dispute that A.K. was providing sexual services as a result of the advertisements that were posted that I have referred to but the defence argues that it was A.K. who posted the advertisements and that Mr. Rahi was not involved. It is the Crown’s position that all of the advertisements were posted by Mr. Rahi. Accordingly, who posted the advertisements for A.K.’s sexual services is a key issue to be determined.
295I will first consider the defence argument that the Group 1A advertisements which were posted before Lava was stolen predate the time frame that this court can logically find Mr. Rahi and A.K. were together both in Ontario and Quebec and that this supports the defence position that A.K. was the one who was posting the advertisements for sexual services and not Mr. Rahi. As I will come to, I reject this submission and as I will explain, in my view it was not possible for A.K. to have posted these advertisements in this period of time when she was with Mr. Rahi without at least his help. These advertisements also corroborate A.K.’s evidence given my finding that she was simply mistaken about when she made her first trip to Quebec and Mr. Rahi’s home.
296This position of Defence counsel fails to consider several facts that can be found based on the uncontested evidence. First, the fact A.K. and Mr. Rahi were kicked out of T.J.’s home at the same time and left together was not contested. A.K.’s evidence that Mr. Rahi offered to help her and that she went with him in his vehicle was not contested either.
297On the evidence, there were a few days, or about a week, between when A.K. and Mr. Rahi were kicked out of T.J.’s house until October 31, 2016, when Lava was taken. This means that they could have been kicked out around October 23, 2016, possibly a little before or after. Unlike the day Lava was taken, here is no evidence of an exact date.
298I have summarized the little evidence I do have about what happened in the days after A.K. and Mr. Rahi left T.J.’s home until Lava was taken. I do not have phone records for this period of time or for that matter after November 8, 2016. That however does not mean A.K. was not with Mr. Rahi during these periods of time. This is a key period of time.
299It is very significant that A.K.’s evidence that when they were kicked out of T.J.’s home that Mr. Rahi offered to help her, that they left together in his vehicle, that she was with Mr. Rahi until they returned to take Lava and in that period of time they just drove around and slept in his car was not contested. The defence final submission that they were not together was not put to A.K. In any event, it is also significant that A.K.’s evidence that she had nowhere to go, did not have any money and did not speak French and more importantly that she did not have a vehicle was not contested.
300The only evidence A.K did give, and she was firm about was that the trip with Lava to Quebec was her first trip to Quebec. As I will come to, she was mistaken about that.
301As the Crown submitted, during the period between being kicked out of T.J.’s home to the taking of Lava, A.K. and Mr. Rahi must have been together that entire time. A.K. relied on Mr. Rahi for shelter and transportation. This was a time when A.K. was most vulnerable, having no place to go, no vehicle or money and being in breach of her bail. Defence counsel submitted that there is no evidence as to how much money is needed to post advertisements or that bitcoin is needed but clearly some money and a means to get to clients is needed. I find that in this time frame it would have been impossible for A.K. to post the advertisements for providing sexual services and provide those services without at least help from Mr. Rahi in terms of money to post the advertisements and transportation in terms of driving her to customers.
302A.K. believed that she and Mr. Rahi stayed in Ontario but the advertisements for her sexual services starting on October 23, 2016, were posted first for Montreal and then various places around Hamilton and the Niagara region as I have reviewed. It would make absolutely no sense for either A.K. or Mr. Rahi to post advertisements for A.K. for her sexual services if she was not in those locations. Furthermore, given A.K. did not have her own vehicle, she must have been with Mr. Rahi in his car during this period.
303A.K. testified that that the photographs with red lingerie stuck out to her because that is when “this all started”. I accept that evidence. I find however that she was clearly wrong in her recollection that the purchase of lingerie and the photographs of her in lingerie were taken after Lava was taken and they were at Mr. Rahi’s home. The advertisements that pre-date the taking of Lava show A.K. in both red and black lingerie and I have found that they were taken in the same room given the colour of the wall paint, the grey blanket and the window with the white blind closed. They were all taken by another person - they are clearly not selfies. There is no evidence that in this period of time A.K. was with anyone other than Mr. Rahi and her evidence about meeting his wife.
304As I have explained, although A.K. was confused about the number of photo shoots in cross-examination because of the differences in her hair being curly or not, and the fact she was also photographed in black lingerie, once she noticed the socks she was wearing while lying on a grey blanket wearing black lingerie, her evidence was clear and compelling that the photographs were all taken at the same time by Mr. Rahi’s wife. I have found that these photographs were taken in the same room which corroborates her evidence. That brings me to the conclusion that they were taken on or before October 23, 2016, when the first advertisements were posted.
305It was never suggested to A.K. that she already owned the red and black lingerie, or the black shoes shown in the advertisements and I find it very unlikely that she did, given her lack of money and addiction issues. I am satisfied that Mr. Rahi must have funded the purchase of those items as A.K. testified to and that she had them by October 23, 2016, as shown in the advertisements
306A.K. was adamant that prior to the first night when Mr. Rahi posted her on Backpage and read her back the advertisement that she did not know what the Backpage website was. I also accept that evidence and that she did not know about using bitcoin to post advertisements on Backpage until Mr. Rahi told her about this. As for the advertisements posted on Eroticmugshots, it is true that this occurred before Lava was taken but I accept A.K.’s evidence that she never knew about this website. I reject the suggestion that she took this position so that the police would not find those advertisements. A.K. was not trying to hide the fact that she had provided sexual services when she went to police and as I have stated, she even volunteered that she has resorted to doing this again recently.
307A.K.’s evidence was consistent on the fact that she did not post any of the advertisements that predated Lava being taken and her surprise and confusion at being shown these advertisements was genuine. She kept repeating that the suggestion was impossible, in my view, because in her mind she did not start providing sexual services until Lava was taken and that is when she believed the photographs of her in red lingerie were taken. She reacted in the same way when she was confronted in cross-examination with a suggestion that she went to Montreal by herself doing sex work before Mr. Rahi took her to Quebec. She forcefully rejected that suggestion. She was in disbelief and repeatedly stated it was impossible. I agree. It was impossible for her to do without Mr. Rahi driving her to Montreal. Although the cell phone records only cover a 10 day period, I have found that in that period A.K. and Mr. Rahi were in constant communication, they travelled together and Mr. Rahi drove her to her in calls and was in the hotel with her during in calls. In that period, I find it impossible that he did not know what A.K. was doing and that at the very least he was assisting her with it.
308Furthermore, as I have summarized, when A.K. was asked questions about working in the sex trade after she left Mr. Rahi, she misunderstood that the question was getting at the April 2017 ads and thought it was about sex work in general, and she volunteered that she did sex work more recently and explained that she believed that’s all she was good for. I agree with the Crown that had she posting advertisements on her own in the period before Lava was taken, she would have easily admitted that.
309According to the advertisements that were posted, A.K. began offering sexual services in Montreal late evening and close to midnight on the night of October 23, 2016, before Lava was taken. I find that A.K. could only have travelled to Montreal with Mr. Rahi, given that she did not speak French or have a vehicle or any money. The timing of these events can be explained as well. I believe A.K.’s evidence about the purchase of lingerie and the photos taken by Mr. Rahi’s wife and that must have happened earlier on October 23 or possibly a day or so before since we do not have an exact date for when she and Mr. Rahi were kicked out of T.J.’s home.
310I also find it significant that there were advertisements for A.K. providing sexual services in the Niagara and Hamilton area on October 30 and 31, 2016. There was no suggestion that shortly before Lava was taken on October 31 that A.K. was not with Mr. Rahi and clearly, she must have been driving with him in Ontario to various places as she recalled since she had no vehicle. Although A.K. firmly believed that the first time she went to Montreal was when they had Lava in the car, and that that is when she started providing sexual services, that is clearly not correct. I have found that she started providing sexual services on October 23, 2016, that the photographs in the advertisements on that day of her in red lingerie were taken by Mr. Rahi’s wife and that she was with Mr. Rahi and that they first went to Montreal.
311I do not find that this error in A.K.’s recollection undermines her credibility on the main issue of who posted the advertisements and that it was Mr. Rahi who directed her to provide sexual services. Although she was firm on the timing aspect of this evidence, on other points A.K. was candid that she does not remember specific dates and times of specific events and given the passage of time that is understandable. When asked how many trips she remembered to Quebec when she was with Mr. Rahi, A.K. testified that there were so many different places and so many different drives and she never knew where they were going that it was really hard to remember specifically. She recalled that there were more trips to Montreal. A.K. testified that they would go back to Quebec and check on Mr. Rahi’s wife and kids and then would go back to Ontario. She recalled that they went back to Ontario multiple times and that “all we did was drive and escort”. In cross-examination A.K. admitted that the order of events is easier to remember, and she agreed with the suggestion that she and Mr. Rahi did not go to Montreal before they took Lava but, in my view, considering all the evidence A.K. was clearly mistaken about when her first trip to Montreal was. The fact A.K. could not recall more about this period of time from when they were kicked out of T.J.’s home to when they took Lava is consistent with the fact she has conflated that trip to Montreal with Lava with the time when the photographs were taken of her in lingerie and she started providing sexual services for Mr. Rahi. For some reason she linked that to the theft of Lava which is clearly not correct.
312Defence counsel argues that if A.K. made a mistake in timing, which I have found, it causes even more concern with the reliability of her evidence and her ability to accurately recall events. I do not accept that submission. This was a mistake in timing in A.K.’ evidence and in my view does not undermine her evidence of what Mr. Rahi and his wife did. All she was mistaken about was that her providing sexual services did not all start after the theft of Lava, an event that would stick out in her mind, Clearly A.K. had begun to provide sexual services on October 23, 2016, the time of the first advertisement. I find that her trip with Mr. Rahi shortly after Lava was taken was at least her second trip to Quebec. The fact that A.K. did not remember the length of time she was in any area providing sexual services or the order in the places that she went to for that purpose is not surprising given the passage of time and the fact she did not keep a record of this. In my view those details do not go to the core of her allegations.
313The inconsistency in Alana’s timeline can be reconciled by some of her other evidence. She testified that she was kicked out of T.J.’s house and then slept in Mr. Rahi’s car for about a week. She did not remember specifically what they did that week. She described spending that week driving around Ontario in his car, with no fixed address. This is consistent with the sexual services advertisements in Ontario during that week: Niagara, Hamilton and Guelph between October 27 and October 31, 2016.
314For all of these reasons I find that A.K. is mistaken that her providing sexual services all started after Lava was taken and that was her first trip to Montreal. The advertisements for A.K. providing sexual services establish that her first trip to Montreal in this period must have been on October 23, 2016. Even on the defence theory it would make no sense for her to post advertisements if she was not in the location where she was offering sexual services.
315This also fits with A.K.’s evidence that Mr. Rahi told her that if she went with him, she would at least be out of the province and her evidence that she needed to get out of Ontario, or she would be arrested. It would make sense that Quebec was their first destination once they were kicked out.
316This also fits with the advertisements in the period before Lava was taken, all of which stated that it was A.K.’s first time in that location. Clearly there was a trip to Montreal with Lava, in Mr. Rahi’s vehicle and based on the cell phone records it happened late on October 31, when I find Mr. Rahi and A.K. arrived in Drummondville just after midnight on November 1, 2016. By then however A.K. had already been providing sexual services at the request of Mr. Rahi for about a week and this was in fact her second trip to Montreal. The further advertisements for sexual services are consistent with this as well as they stated that it was now A.K.’s second time in Montreal and the other locations in Ontario.
317Defence counsel submits that all but one of the advertisements posted before October 31, 2016, were posted on Eroticmugshots with only one from Backpage. That is not factually correct but, in any event, I do not know why some of the early advertisements were posted on Eroticmugshots, but it does not shake my conclusion that it was Mr. Rahi who posted all of the Group 1 advertisements.
318I appreciate that it is admitted that none of the phone numbers included in the advertisements were registered to Mr. Rahi. However, there is no evidence that any of the phone numbers in the Group 1 advertisements were registered or associated to A.K. either. Only the phone number associated to the advertisements in Group 2 was associated to A.K. which I have dealt with, so this evidence does not assist me one way or the other.
319For these reasons I do not accept Defence counsel’s submission that because some of the advertisements for A.K. providing sexual services predate the taking of Lava means that I cannot logically find Mr. Rahi and A.K. were together both in Ontario and Quebec during this period. I find that they were together from the time they were kicked out of T.J. home which must have occurred just before or very early on October 23rd and that is when Mr. Rahi took A.K. to his home for the first time on the pretext she would help in his dog breeding business and babysitting for his wife. That is consistent with the fact that advertisements for A.K.’s sexual services with photographs of her wearing red lingerie began on October 23, 2016, for the Montreal area.
320My finding in this regard, in fact is a key finding based on this evidence, that supports A.K.’s evidence that not only was Mr. Rahi the one who posted all of the advertisements for Angel’s sexual services but that she was with him the entire time from the time they were kicked out of T.J.’s home until she escaped from Mr. Rahi at the Newmarket courthouse. Her evidence in that regard is corroborated by the cell phone records I have summarized.
321As for the advertisements for A.K.’s sexual services posted in April 2017, I have already reviewed A.K.’s evidence with respect to these advertisements. She was genuinely surprised and confused when she first saw them, but she readily explained why she knew her boyfriend had found the pictures and how he posted those on Facebook to hurt and humiliate her. I do not accept the defence submission that her shock was that of being caught, not from seeing these advertisements for the first time.
322Although there is no evidence that her boyfriend or his friend posted these advertisements, on Backpage, I accept A.K.’s evidence that she did not do so and her explanation for why she became aware of the fact that these photos were at least posted on Facebook. I do not need to speculate on how it was that they were posted. Furthermore, given the evidence that A.K. did volunteer about providing sexual services more recently I see no reason why she would have so vehemently rejected having anything to do with the April 2017 ads unless that was the truth. Finally, it would have made no sense for A.K. to lie about these advertisements to police when she knew that they were found by her boyfriend’s friend and her boyfriend had posted the photographs on Facebook.
323The fact that A.K.’s actual phone number at the time was on these April 2017 advertisements reinforces my view that she did not post these advertisements and that they were posted by her boyfriend who wanted to humiliate and harass her. Had she knowingly done so with her own phone number she would have known that that would have meant that men looking for her services would actually call her in response to the advertisements. She was not asked if that occurred, but it is an obvious conclusion. Had A.K. decided to offer sexual services at this time on her own and copy the advertisements and photographs from the earlier advertisements it would only make sense that phone numbers not associated with her actual phone number would be used just as was done for the Group 1 advertisements.
324For these reasons I accept A.K.’s evidence that she did not post the April 2017 advertisements. The fact they exist does not support any negative inferences about her credibility or reliability at this trial.
325Having found that A.K.’s evidence on her core allegations has been largely corroborated, I accept the balance of her evidence about how Mr. Rahi compelled her to provide sexual services and how he controlled this and treated her. I will review this evidence in connection with the specific charges before the court.
THE SIMILAR FACT EVIDENCE OF K.H.
326Defence counsel submits that the similar fact evidence of K.H. introduced through the ASF does little to corroborate the core of the criminal allegations levied by A.K. It is the position of the defence that there are marked differences in the conduct alleged and K.H.’s evidence comes with its own frailties of credibility and reliability. It is admitted however that there is no evidence that K.H. and A.K. knew each other.
327I intend to first consider the Crown’s case without considering the similar fact evidence of K.H. I will then address the similar fact evidence to determine if it is admissible and, if so, whether it corroborates the evidence of A.K. and to what extent if any it makes a difference in my conclusions. For that reason, I have dealt with the similar fact evidence in an appendix to this decision.
ANALYSIS
Has the Crown proven jurisdiction and identity?
328It is admitted that Kalib Rahi is the individual known by A.K. and T.J. in reference to the events before the Court. It is also admitted that the named individual in the indictment, Kalib Rahi, born January 7, 1987, is the individual before the Court.
329There is therefore no issue with this Court’s jurisdiction or the identity of Mr. Rahi.
330Defence counsel conceded that if I accept the evidence of A.K. it makes out the offences that Mr. Rahi has been charged with. I do however intend to review each of those charges to determine if the Crown has proven the essential elements of each offence beyond a reasonable doubt in accordance with the relevant law. I will begin with the four counts of human trafficking and sexual services offences.
Has the Crown proven Count 3 – Human Trafficking?
The Law
331In Count 3, Mr. Rahi is charged with trafficking in a person contrary to s. 279.01(1) of the Criminal Code (trafficking in persons). The relevant portions of the offence read as follows:
(1) Every person who recruits, transports, transfers, receives, holds, conceals or harbours a person, or exercises control, direction or influence over the movements of a person, for the purpose of exploiting them or facilitating their exploitation is guilty of an indictable offence[.]
(2) No consent to the activity that forms the subject-matter of a charge under subsection (1) is valid.
332Accordingly, whether or not a complainant factually consented to providing the labour or service in question is irrelevant, since such consent is not valid in law.
333Exploitation is defined in s. 279.04:
(1) For the purposes of sections 279.01 to 279.03, a person exploits another person if they cause them to provide, or offer to provide, labour or a service by engaging in conduct that, in all the circumstances, could reasonably be expected to cause the other person to believe that their safety or the safety of a person known to them would be threatened if they fail to provide, or offer to provide, the labour or service.
(2) In determining whether an accused exploits another person under subsection (1), the Court may consider, among other factors, whether the accused
(a) used or threatened to use force or another form of coercion;
(b) used deception; or
(c) abused a position of trust, power or authority.
334The recent decision from the Supreme Court of Canada of R. v. T.J.F., 2024 SCC 38, 497 D.L.R. (4th) 441 confirmed principles set out in several earlier decisions from the Court of Appeal for Ontario, including R. v. Sinclair, 2020 ONCA 61, 384 C.C.C. (3d) 484, R. v. Gallone, 2019 ONCA 663, 147 O.R. (3d) 225, and R. v. A.A., 2015 ONCA 558, 327 C.C.C. (3d) 377, setting out what the Crown must prove to convict Mr. Rahi for trafficking A.K. The relevant principles given the evidence in this case are as follows:
a) the range of conduct captured under s. 279.01(1) is “broad” given that the language in the section is disjunctive due to the use of the word “or”. As a result, for the actus reus of the offence the Crown is only required to prove that Mr. Rahi engaged in any one of the types of conduct: T.J.F. at para. 92, Gallone at para. 33 and A.A. at para. 80.
b) the actus reus does not require that actual exploitation occurred as exploitation is not an essential element of the offence, only the intention to exploit or facilitate exploitation: T.J.F. at para. 99.
c) the phrase “control, direction or influence” reflects a spectrum of power that the accused exerts over the victim’s ability to move freely and their actual movements:
On one end of the spectrum, the accused will exercise ‘control’ over the victim’s movements; […] On the other end of the spectrum, the accused will exercise ‘influence’ over the victim’s movement when they will, at a minimum, ‘induce action or change decisions or acts of [the victim] about their movements. This means that the victim is free to move wherever they like, but that when they decide how to exercise their freedom, the accused ‘alter[s], sway[s] or affect[s] their will’ (T.J.F. at para. 65; citations omitted).
d) Direction means management, guidance, advice or instruction. Direction will often overlap with control or influence and can be found to have occurred even where the victim’s movements have not been controlled or influenced: T.J.F. at para. 66.
e) It is not enough that the accused has acquired the power or the ability to control, direct, or influence the victim’s movements; he must have actualized it in some way such that the victim’s movements have been controlled, directed, or influenced by the accused: T.J.F. at para. 67.
Perhaps something like
f) In Sinclair, at para. 11, the court described conduct that amounted to exercises of influence over the complainant:
There can be no doubt the appellant exercised influence over the complainant by persuading her to live with him, by telling her how much to charge customers, and by posting ads for her to work as a sex trade worker, among other things.
g) With respect to the mens rea of the offence the Crown must prove that Mr. Rahi acted with the purpose of exploiting or facilitating the exploitation of A.K. The mens rea can sometimes be inferred from a finding that exploitation occurred because it is assumed that people are usually able to foresee the consequences of their actions: T.J.F. at paras. 100-101, A. A. at para 87, Gallone at para. 54.
h) We can extract from the definition of exploitation two requirements that must be satisfied for exploitation to occur. Exploitation involves conduct that both (i) causes the victim to provide (or offer to provide) labour or a service and (ii) a reasonable expectation that the victim could believe that their safety (or the safety of a person known to them) would be threatened if they failed to provide that labour or service: T.J.F. at para. 103. Because the focus is on the accused, the complainant need not subjectively have feared for their safety: A.A., at para. 74. Additionally, the complainant's safety need not have actually been threatened: A.A. at para. 70.
i) The definition of exploitation does not specify the term “conduct”, which can take many forms, including regular violence and threats of violence towards a victim and, more generally, a violent relationship between the accused and the victim. Section 279.01(1) lists factors that the courts may consider in determining whether an accused exploits another person: (a) used or threatened to use force or another form of coercion; (b) used deception; or (c) abused a position of trust, power or authority: T.J.F. at para. 104.
j) In determining whether the accused's conduct could reasonably be expected to cause the belief, the judge must have regard to all circumstances, which include the victim's personal characteristics and vulnerabilities, such as their lack of education, prior victimization, socio-economic disadvantage, and social and family isolation, among others: T.J.F. at para. 105.
k) The court at para. 105 approved the list of circumstances that might be relevant in the analysis from Sinclair (at para. 15) as follows:
- the presence or absence of violence or threats
- coercion, including physical, emotional or psychological
- deception
- abuse of trust, power, or authority
- vulnerability due to age or personal circumstances, such as social or economic disadvantage and victimization from other sources
- isolation of the complainant
- the nature of the relationship between the accused and the complainant
- directive behaviour
- influence exercised over the nature and location services provided
- control over advertising of services
- limitations on the complainant's movement
- control of finances
- financial benefit to the accused, and
- use of social media to assert control or monitor communications with others.
l) In sum, exploitation occurs when the accused engages in any conduct, including regular violence and threats of violence, that both causes the victim to provide (or offer to provide) labour or a service and could be reasonably expected to cause the victim to believe that their safety (or the safety of a person known to them) would be threatened if they failed to provide that labour or service. The latter must be assessed using an objective test, having regard to all the circumstances, including the victim's vulnerabilities: T.J.F. at para. 106.
m) Even where the trial judge accepts that actual exploitation occurred, the Crown must still prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused subjectively intended to exploit the complainant: T.J.F. at para. 108.
335I have also found the decision of Justice Nakatsuru, R. v. Musara 2022, ONSC 2835, which has been relied upon by a number of my colleagues, to be of assistance.
Analysis of the Evidence.
336I have already given my reasons for finding the evidence of A.K. on her core allegations of human trafficking to be credible and reliable. I have also set out a number of reasons for why I find that her evidence with respect to the human trafficking offences has been corroborated to a large extent by other evidence. This evidence includes evidence that was not contested, the cell phone records and their analysis, and the evidence with respect to the posting of the advertisements for A.K. providing sexual services and the content of those advertisements.
337I make the following additional findings of fact.
338The evidence of A.K. and T.J. that Mr. Rahi knew about A.K.’s past and the difficulties she was facing when they were both staying with T.J. in September and October 2016 was not disputed. I find that at that time Mr. Rahi knew that A.K. was a young 21-year-old woman who was very vulnerable for a number of reasons. She had had a difficult upbringing, having been put into foster care at a very young age, had no family support, was homeless and had been living in shelters, had just ended a relationship with an abusive boyfriend, did not have much money, was struggling with addiction issues which she was trying to get over, and she was facing numerous criminal charges and as a term of her bail was required to live with T.J..
339I find that A.K. knew about Mr. Rahi’s dog breeding business and while they were both staying at T.J.’s home Mr. Rahi discussed the possibility of A.K. earning some money by working with Mr. Rahi in that business in Quebec and by helping his wife with babysitting. A.K. told Mr. Rahi that she loved being around animals and while they were still with T.J., she went with Mr. Rahi on a couple of occasions to deliver puppies. This evidence was not challenged.
340T.J. kicked Mr. Rahi and A.K. out at the same time around a week before Lava was taken. Mr. Rahi would have known as a result that A.K. was vulnerable because she could no longer ask T.J. for help. Having been kicked out of her home, she had nowhere to go, and she was now in breach of one of the conditions of her bail. I accept A.K.’s evidence that she had no options for a place to live, no money and no vehicle and so she accepted Mr. Rahi’s offer to help her. He told her that he would drive her to Quebec, and by getting her out of Ontario, this would ensure she would not be arrested for breaching her bail. He also told her that in Quebec A.K. would work for him, helping him in his dog breeding business and babysitting for his wife. This is how he lured A.K. to go with him. Despite the sexual assaults A.K. has alleged, she accepted as she had no alternative. She wanted to get out of Quebec and was interested in making some money as Mr. Rahi suggested and she left with Mr. Rahi in his car.
341A.K. was aware and afraid of the fact that she was in breach of her bail conditions and Mr. Rahi used that as a reason he said he would help her and get her out of Ontario. In my view A.K. not only feared for her safety but there was also a reasonable expectation, based on my findings that she had nowhere to go, that she could believe her safety was threatened if she did not go along with what Mr. Rahi wanted her to do.
342I have given my reasons for finding that A.K. and Mr. Rahi were together from the time they were kicked out of T.J. home just before or very early on October 23. That is when Mr. Rahi took A.K. to his home for the first time on the pretext she would help in his dog breeding business and babysitting for his wife. This trip was not the trip with Lava in the car that A.K. recalled.
343I have explained why I find that Mr. Rahi must have funded the purchase of the red and black lingerie and the black shoes shown in the advertisements. I have explained my findings that the photographs in the advertisements for sexual services that predated October 31, 2016, were all taken at the same time by Mr. Rahi’s wife and were posted by Mr. Rahi starting on October 23, 2016. A.K. only remembered one shopping trip for lingerie and I find that Mr. Rahi must have taken A.K. shopping in Montreal for red and black lingerie and a pair of high heels on or before October 23, 2016, when they first arrived in Montreal. On this point I accept the evidence of A.K., which is corroborated by the fact she had no means to get to Montreal or purchase lingerie without a vehicle or money. I find this trip was Mr. Rahi’s idea.
344I accept A.K.’s evidence that Mr. Rahi first introduced her to the idea of escorting and told her about Backpage when he bought the lingerie for her. At this time, he hinted that she could help him make some money and he told her that he had done this with other girls as a way to make money. I accept A.K.’s evidence that she was not sure what escorting entailed and she still understood she was going to stay at his place, and she would help him with the kennels and babysitting. It was only after they went back to Mr. Rahi’s home, that Mr. Rahi’s wife explained this further and that she would take some pictures of A.K. wearing the lingerie that Mr. Rahi had purchased. I accept that Mr. Rahi told A.K. at this time that he was “stuck in Quebec” and would not be able to make money delivering puppies and so escorting was a way for her to make some money and for him to make some money as well. On this basis I find that Mr. Rahi recruited A.K. for the purpose of providing sexual services.
345I have explained why I accept A.K.’s evidence that at Mr. Rahi’s home his wife took all the photographs of A.K. that are in the Group 1 advertisements for sexual services, with A.K. wearing either red or black lingerie and that they were all taken at the same time in the same room in Mr. Rahi’s home. I also accept A.K.’s evidence that she was directed how to stand and pose by Mr. Rahi’s wife and that all these photographs were taken with the knowledge and direction of Mr. Rahi for the purpose of advertising sexual services to be provided by A.K.
346After the photographs were taken by Mr. Rahi’s wife, I find that A.K. was with Mr. Rahi in Montreal when he prepared the first advertisement and although he did not show her the actual advertisement, he was telling her what he was putting in the advertisement while he was typing on his phone. I find that, as A.K. testified, when the first advertisement was prepared the only input she gave Mr. Rahi was her weight and height and they discussed and came up with the name Angel. A.K. knew that the advertisement talked about sexual services, that it referred to in calls and out calls, and the rates set by Mr. Rahi.
347I also accept A.K.’s evidence that she was in Montreal with Mr. Rahi when he purchased bitcoin and posted the first advertisements which would have been the advertisements posted on October 23, 2016, that I have referred to. I have explained why I have found that Mr. Rahi prepared and posted all the Group 1 advertisements. I accept A.K.’s evidence that as a result of these advertisements that she provided sexual services to the customers who responded to these postings in Montreal and various cities in southern Ontario.
348I accept A.K.’s evidence that Mr. Rahi did not ask A.K. what she was prepared to do or tell her what sexual services the customer wanted. He told her that she should do what the customer asked. This included full vaginal intercourse and blowjobs. I accept A.K.’s evidence that Mr. Rahi told her that she had to do whatever the client asked for even if she was frightened or did not want to, such as letting the client not use a condom. She was not okay with this but felt she had no choice as the customer has already arranged this and paid extra for this.
349I will come to the charge of whether Mr. Rahi received a financial benefit from the sexual services provided by A.K. but I accept her evidence that as part of his exercising control over her, Mr. Rahi demanded that she give him all of the money that the clients paid her. He knew how much money the client was to pay, and so he knew how much money to expect from her. I accept A.K.’s evidence that Mr. Rahi would always check if there was any money missing and so she was never able to keep any of the money. When she asked that she be able to do so, Mr. Rahi told her that she did not need money and that he would take care of her.
350I accept A.K.’s evidence, which is corroborated by the cell phone records to some extent and the advertisements for sexual services, that Mr. Rahi chose the cities they would go where she would provide sexual services, and he transported her in his vehicle to Montreal and to Toronto and various locations in southern Ontario for the purpose of providing sexual services to the customers who responded to the advertisements. He then transferred her in his vehicle to the customers who wanted out calls. At times A.K. did in calls in a hotel room rented by Mr. Rahi and that in those cases he remained hidden in the bathroom of the room. I accept A.K.’s evidence that Mr. Rahi not only decided where they would go but when they arrived at a city he had chosen, he would set up the advertisement, respond to the calls about the advertisement and she would go see the customers and do what the customers told her to do.
351I find that throughout the time from when Mr. Rahi and A.K. were kicked out of T.J.’s home until A.K. was able to escape from Mr. Rahi at the Newmarket courthouse that Mr. Rahi either harboured her in his vehicle or in hotel rooms that he rented for the purpose of A.K. providing sexual services to those who responded to the advertisements. I find that throughout this period Mr. Rahi continued to exercise control over A.K. and he directed her movements and her work providing sexual services.
352I find for these reasons that Mr. Rahi acted in many of the ways set out in s. 279.01(1) of the Criminal Code. The next issue is to consider whether he did so for the purpose of exploiting A.K. Considering the factors set out in the definition of exploitation and from Sinclair, I find that Mr. Rahi exploited A.K. As I have already found, and as the Crown put it, Mr. Rahi leveraged A.K.’s vulnerability by offering her shelter and food, and a way out of Ontario where she feared she would be arrested which made her feel indebted to him. Once she was out of Ontario Mr. Rahi then used that vulnerability to force A.K. to agree to earn money for him providing sexual services to customers who responded to the advertisements in the locations he chose. Mr. Rahi then made her feel indebted to him, because as he told her, he was now stuck in Quebec.
353I accept A.K.’s evidence that she did not want to provide sexual services and was scared going into the first out call, but that Mr. Rahi was able to compel her to provide sexual services and that he was able to exercise control over her movements because she did not feel that she had any options. Not only did she have nowhere else to go, but she also had little or no money and no vehicle, after she was kicked out of T.J.’s home. Once she was in Quebec, where Mr. Rahi took her first, she was further isolated because she did not speak French. I accept A.K.’s evidence that in her mind she only had Mr. Rahi, and she felt she needed to do what he asked. She was afraid if she did not, she would be left on the streets in Montreal where she had never been before and did not know anyone. She was in her early 20s and inexperienced and relied on Mr. Rahi for everything. When they were in Ontario, I accept that until she got to Newmarket, A.K. did not know where they were going or where she was, she did not know, and she did not know people in these places and did not feel she could walk down the street to get away. She was also told by Mr. Rahi that what she was doing was illegal and would get her into trouble when she suggested they go to the police about the client that assaulted her. In Ontario she still would have known that she might be arrested for the breach of her bail.
354I also accept A.K.’s evidence that she was afraid of Mr. Rahi and that he had a way of speaking that scared her because of the tone of his voice and how big he was. I also accept A.K.’s evidence that she knew that Mr. Rahi had a firearm and that this made her feel intimidated even though he never actually threatened her with it. At the time it made her feel like she had to stay with Mr. Rahi to be protected.
355I find that Mr. Rahi knew that A.K. struggled to see customers and that he gave her cocaine and alcohol to deal with this and to keep her awake and keep her working for long periods of time, as she testified to. Eventually he got her hooked on injecting cocaine. Mr. Rahi controlled her by the supply of cocaine while she was performing sexual services for clients.
356Although A.K.’s evidence was inconsistent on whether she had a phone, as I have explained part of that confusion was that I believe she got rid of her phone on the way to Quebec because Mr. Rahi told her police could track it and she would be arrested. She admitted that he gave her another phone, but I find that Mr. Rahi would not let her use that phone when she wanted to, and that Mr. Rahi monitored her calls to make sure she did not call anyone and tell anyone what they were doing. In this way he isolated her from anyone that might have been able to help her get away from him earlier.
357Even though there were times that A.K. was left alone by Mr. Rahi, I accept her evidence that he was never away for long. I find that all of the reasons A.K. gave for why she provided sexual services to customers even though she did not want to, also applied to why she did not try to leave Mr. Rahi. Through a fear of having no money and nowhere to go, Mr. Rahi caused A.K. to agree to provide sexual services in the locations he chose. I find that she did not leave Mr. Rahi earlier as she did not have money and did not know any one where she was until she was in Newmarket where her father lived, and she was able to get away from him.
358Having found that the Crown has proven the actus reus of the offence of human trafficking and that A.K. was exploited by Mr. Rahi beyond a reasonable doubt I also find that it is clear that Mr. Rahi had the requisite mens rea. He intentionally acted in the way he did towards A.K. to compel her to provide sexual services so that he would receive money.
359For these reasons I find Mr. Rahi guilty of Count 3.
Has the Crown proven Count 4 – Receiving a Financial Benefit from Human Trafficking?
360Count 4 alleges that Mr. Rahi received a financial or other material benefit, knowing that it was obtained by or derived directly or indirectly from the commission of the offence of human trafficking, contrary to s. 279.02(1) of the Criminal Code. I have already found that the Crown has proven, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Mr. Rahi committed the offence of human trafficking under s.279.01(1) of the Criminal Code.
361The actus reus is the receipt of a financial or other material benefit that is obtained directly or indirectly derived from the commission of the offence of human trafficking. The prohibited conduct of human trafficking, therefore, must have occurred. The mens rea is the intention to receive that financial or other material benefit knowing that it is from the offence of human trafficking: R. v. Antoine, 2019 ONSC 3848, at para. 28, Musara, at para. 118.
362I accept A.K.’s evidence that Mr. Rahi demanded that she turn over all the money that she received from customers to him. I also accept that she would earn a minimum of $2,000 on any given night and maybe more although she fairly admitted that this was not true every single night. I appreciate that this aspect of A.K.’s evidence is not corroborated by bank records, but I have explained why the uncontested facts, and the cell phone records support my findings that after they were kicked out of T.J.’s home Mr. Rahi and A.K. were together during that entire time. I have also explained why I have concluded that it was Mr. Rahi who posted the advertisements for A.K to provide sexual services for a fee he set. In light of these findings, I find that Mr. Rahi did receive financial compensation from the sexual services she provided at his direction. The actual amount he received does not matter but I am sure it was significant.
363For these reasons I find that the Crown has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Rahi received a financial benefit from the commission of the offence of human trafficking. Given my findings with respect to Count 3, I also find that the Crown has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Rahi knew that the money he was taking from A.K. had been paid to her by her customers in payment of her providing sexual services to them.
364For these reasons I find Mr. Rahi guilty of Count 4.
Has the Crown proven Count 5 – Procuring?
365A person can be found guilty of procuring contrary to s. 286.3(1) of the Criminal Code in one of two ways: (1) by procuring a person “to offer or provide sexual services for consideration”; or (2) by recruiting, holding, concealing, or harbouring a person, who offers or provides sexual services for consideration, or exercising, controlling, directing, or influencing the movements of that person.
366Dealing with the first mode the court in Gallone at para. 61 approved of the definition of procure as follows: “to cause, or to induce, or to have a persuasive effect upon the conduct that is alleged.”
367To prove the mens rea for the procuring offence, the Crown must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Rahi intended to procure A.K. to offer or provide sexual services for consideration. Alternatively, the Crown must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he intended to do any one of the enumerated acts in relation to A.K. who offered or provided sexual services for consideration, and he acted with the purpose of facilitating an offence under s. 286.1(1).
368I find that the Crown has proven that Mr. Rahi committed this offence in both ways beyond a reasonable doubt.
369I have already found that Mr. Rahi is the one who initiated the conversations about A.K. providing sexual services and that she only did so because she felt compelled to do so for various reasons I have set out. But for the conduct of Mr. Rahi, I find that at the time in question A.K. would not have provided the sexual services that she did. Thus Mr. Rahi intentionally caused A.K. to provide sexual services.
370I have also found in connection with Count 3, that Mr. Rahi intentionally recruited, transported, transferred and harboured A.K. and intentionally engaged in other conduct so that she would provide sexual services.
371For these reasons I find that the Crown has proven both the actus reus and the mens rea of this offence beyond a reasonable doubt. I find Mr. Rahi guilty of Count 5.
Has the Crown proven Count 6 – Advertising Sexual Services?
372Section 286.4 prohibits the advertising of an offer to provide sexual services for consideration. The actus reus of this offence is made out if Mr. Rahi advertised an offer to provide sexual services for consideration. The mens rea is made out if: (i) Mr. Rahi intended to advertise the offer; and (ii) he knew that the offer was one to provide sexual services for consideration: Gallone at para. 78.
373Section 286.5 of the Criminal Code provides immunity to a person like A.K. from prosecution under s. 286.4, for advertising her own sexual services. That immunity does not apply to Mr. Rahi if the Crown has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that he knowingly assisted A.K. in advertising her sexual services: Gallone at para. 99.
374I have set out my reasons for why I have found that it was Mr. Rahi who posted all of the advertisements in Group 1 on either Backpage or Eroticmugshots. I have also found that, with very little input from A.K., he created the advertisements and bought lingerie for A.K. and arranged for his wife to take pictures of A.K. in various poses wearing that lingerie and that he then posted those pictures as part of these advertisements.
375For these reasons I find that Mr. Rahi knowingly created and posted advertisements for the provision of sexual services by A.K. The Crown has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Rahi is guilty of Count 6.
Has the Crown proven Counts 1 & 2 – Sexual Assault?
376Counts 1 and 2 each allege that Mr. Rahi sexually assaulted A.K. sometime between October 1, 2016, and February 28, 2017. The Crown relies on the evidence of A.K. that she was sexually assaulted by Mr. Rahi when they were both staying at T.J.’s house, once in a bedroom and the other time in the kitchen, and that in both cases she did not consent to Mr. Rahi’s forced vaginal penetration. The Crown also relies on A.K.’s evidence that Mr. Rahi forced her to give him oral sex while she was in the car with Mr. Rahi driving to Quebec after they stopped in the Whitby area and that there were other incidents of forced fellatio in the car thereafter.
377The defence concedes that the incidents that A.K. described make out the offence of sexual assault but submits that none of the evidence was sufficiently credible and reliable to establish proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
378I have carefully considered the evidence of A.K. with respect to what happened with Mr. Rahi while she was at T.J.’s house. There were some memory gaps and other issues that were explored during crosse-examination, including which incident occurred first, but given the time that has passed and what A.K. testified that she went through afterwards, I am not concerned about those issues. I found A.K.’s account despite any weaknesses that she was cross-examined about to be credible, and I believe her that these assaults happened. Her evidence makes out all of the elements of sexual assault.
379My difficulty is that on the issue of what happened at T.J.’s house, I also found T.J. to give credible evidence despite the concerns I have set out with respect to her evidence. I would have expected, notwithstanding the time that has passed, that had T.J. walked into the kitchen and saw what A.K. alleges happened there that she would have some memory. It is possible that A.K. mixed up which assault T.J. walked into but even if it was the bedroom, T.J. testified that she did not see anything that gave her any concern apart from the fact A.K. was drunk. Given T.J. admitted motive to paint Mr. Rahi in the worst light possible it is difficult to reconcile her evidence with the evidence of A.K. This difference has given me a reasonable doubt about what happened while A.K. was still at T.J.’s home.
380However, I come to a different conclusion with respect to A.K.’s evidence that Mr. Rahi forced her to give him oral sex. With respect to A.K.’s evidence about the time she was driving with Mr. Rahi to Quebec, with Lava in the car, she testified that when Mr. Rahi asked her to give him oral sex, he told her that if she refused, he would leave her there and she would get murdered. She felt scared because they were “in the middle of nowhere,” therefore she complied. It would have been abundantly clear to Mr. Rahi that she did not consent and only complied because of his threat.
381Defence counsel submits that this allegation is devoid of detail and arguably inconsistent with A.K.’s statement to police. I have already explained why I have found that her statement was not inconsistent and as for detail, this was a very quick incident, and I am not sure what more detail A.K. could have been asked for or recalled from something that happened in the fall of 2016. She testified to when and how it happened, the fact that Mr. Rahi threatened her if she did not agree to do it, the fact that Mr. Rahi ejaculated and what she did as a result.
382The only issue is that A.K. associated this incident with the trip to Quebec with Lava and that after this trip was when she was forced by Mr. Rahi to provide sexual services. Given that I have found she is mistaken on when she first went to Quebec, I can therefore not be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt on her evidence alone that this forced fellatio happened on the trip to Quebec after Lava was taken.
383The Crown submits that on this allegation, the similar fact evidence of K.H. supports A.K.’s credibility and reliability about the forced fellatio while driving and that this was part of Mr. Rahi’s modus operandi: each allegation arises from a specific context of Mr. Rahi forcing both women to give him fellatio while he was driving, and the women had nowhere to go and no way out of the situation. The forced fellatio while driving is an unusual feature that both A.K. and K.H. described. The fact that both women testified this happened more than once shows this is a pattern of behaviour for Mr. Rahi, and that defies coincidence.
384I will come to that argument but find, even without the similar fact evidence of K.H., that A.K.’s evidence that after she provided sexual services to clients Mr. Rahi would require her to give him fellatio or have intercourse with her is credible. She testified that Mr. Rahi would grab her and force himself on her to get what he wanted sexually and that this happened multiple times. I am satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that this occurred. I also am satisfied that this happened more than once, as A.K. testified to. Since they were often travelling in Mr. Rahi’s vehicle, and did not have a hotel room, that corroborates A.K.’s evidence that forced fellatio happened more than once in Mr. Rahi’s car. Given the use of force I find that Mr. Rahi must have known that A.K. was not consenting to this, particularly after he demanded that she do this after he had forced her to see as many as 10 customers.
385For these reasons I find that the Crown has proven that Mr. Rahi forced A.K. to give him fellatio without her consent on numerous occasions and as such that the Crown has proven Count 1 and Count 2 beyond a reasonable doubt.
DISPOSITION
386Mr. Rahi would you please stand.
387For the reasons I have given I find you guilty of Counts 1 to 6.
388I also find you not guilty of Count 7.
Spies J.
Spies, J.
Released: January 23, 2026
Edited Decision Released: January 29, 2026
APPENDIX A
SIMILAR FACT EVIDENCE OF KH
389Justice Roberts gave extensive reasons for ruling that the similar fact evidence of K.H. given in November and December 2022, at a trial where Mr. Rahi was found guilty of similar offences, is admissible assuming that the foundations for that ruling remains: See R. v. Rahi, 2025 ONSC 4699.
390On the merits of the admissibility of the similar fact evidence, counsel before me have essentially reargued the application before Justice Roberts. There would be no point to having an application to determine the admissibility of similar fact evidence brought in advance of trial and then pay no heed to the decision of the judge who heard the application when the evidence is admitted in the trial if there is no material change that requires the ruling to be reconsidered. I have carefully reviewed Justice Roberts’ decision, and I agree with her reasons. On my view, there is nothing in the submissions of the parties that would displace Justice Roberts’ ruling on the similar fact evidence.
391Justice Roberts held that when she considered the two accounts of A.K. and K.H. in light of the test from R. v. Handy, 2002 SCC 56, [2002] 2 S.C.R. 908, that she was satisfied that they demonstrate the specific propensity articulated by the Crown “such that the similar fact evidence of KH potentially has significant probative value” (at para. 5).
392At paras. 17 and 18, Justice Roberts held:
17When I balance the probative value of the similar fact evidence against the risk of prejudice it poses in the context of a judge alone trial, I am satisfied that it is potentially admissible, and the Crown should be permitted to tender it, subject to a change in the circumstances on which this decision is based, i.e. a material change. As I noted at the outset, two potential changes leap to mind: first, that AK’s actual testimony is different from her statements in ways that undermine the logic of this ruling; second, evidence or [sic] collusion or contamination emerges at trial that negates the improbability of coincidence. But there could be other material changes that would require this ruling to be reconsidered.
18Assuming the foundation for the ruling remains, it will of course be for the trial judge to decide if all the evidence, considered together, supports the specific propensity or pattern I have identified, and if so, what, if any, significance it has in assessing the credibility and reliability of AK’s evidence.
393I have reviewed the Chart set out in Justice Roberts’ decision, at para. 6, that summarized the similarities between the accounts of A.K. based on her police statements and the evidence of K.H. from the trial. She noted that Defence counsel did not contest the accuracy of the Chart but argued that it showed key differences in the two accounts and that the similarities were generic.
394I have made findings with respect to the differences in the evidence of A.K. at trial and her statements and have found A.K. to be a credible and reliable witness on her core allegations of human trafficking. There are a few differences between what was set out in the Chart based on A.K.’s statements as compared to her evidence at trial or my findings of fact but none of them are material or undermine the logic of Justice Roberts’ ruling such that the pattern relied on by the Crown is diminished. These differences are as follows.
395I have found is that A.K. began her work in the sex trade when Mr. Rahi drove her to his home when they were kicked out of T.J.’s home, before Lava was stolen, and that she is simply mistaken in her belief this happened after Lava was taken. This difference from what was presented to Justice Roberts, however, in my view is not significant. It does not change the fact that Mr. Rahi took advantage of her vulnerability and used the prospect of her working in his dog breeding business and helping his wife with babysitting as the reason to get her out of Ontario, along with the fact she might be arrested for breaching her bail.
396The other difference from the Chart given my findings of fact is that Mr. Rahi’s threat to leave A.K. in the middle of nowhere, when they were driving to Quebec with Lava, did not happen on the first trip to Quebec. It happened later. Given my finding that Mr. Rahi drove A.K. to Quebec before Lava was stolen, the threat he made forcing her to perform fellatio when they were travelling to Quebec with Lava must have come later. That in my view does not make any difference. Mr. Rahi would not have needed to threaten A.K. when they first drove to Quebec as she would have had no reason to be concerned given the promises Mr. Rahi had made. It was only once they were in Quebec and Mr. Rahi forced her to provide sexual services that she had no choice but to comply for the reasons I have set out above in my Judgment. Unlike K.H. there was no overt threat at the time, but the coercion was the same.
397Finally, A.K. did not give any evidence at trial about Mr. Rahi putting GHB in her drink. Furthermore, although the Chart states that Mr. Rahi took away A.K.’s cell phone and did not allow her to use the phone or the Internet, her evidence at trial was somewhat different. A.K. testified that while Mr. Rahi did not take away her phone, he would sit in on and monitor her calls and would not allow her to call anyone to tell anyone what she and Mr. Rahi were doing.
398However, her evidence at trial, as I have set out, makes her experience more like K.H.’s in that K.H. testified that Mr. Rahi would not let her use her phone unless he was present, and he could watch what she was doing. In both cases the women were isolated from those that could help them.
399As for the differences that Defence counsel has argued before me, most were dealt with in the decision of Justice Roberts at para. 14. Defence counsel has focused on the difference in character of the role the dog breeding business played with respect to the facts, the supposedly different character of coercion and indebtedness, and the difference in the role drugs played between the cases. Justice Roberts noted at para. 13 of her reasons, with respect to the dog breeding business, that the “connection was indirect in relation to AK”, and added at para. 14 that A.K. did not work there. Justice Roberts also noted that “the threats Mr. Rahi is alleged to have used to coerce each woman to cooperate are different” (para. 14). The Chart that Justice Roberts cited also documents how different the drug use of the complainants was.
400Defence counsel argues that the trajectory of the coercion to join the sex trade was different in that it took time and effort for Mr. Rahi to talk K.H. into it. Counsel also argues that unlike K.H. Mr. Rahi did not use express threats to compel A.K. but rather relied on the fact that A.K. felt she had no choice. In my view these differences are not important and do not detract from the pattern as they simply reflect that fact that A.K. was much more vulnerable than K.H., something that was considered by Justice Roberts.
401Defence counsel in her oral submissions argued that how the human trafficking ended was different for each of them, in that A.K. testified that she escaped from Mr. Rahi at the Newmarket Courthouse and in the case of K.H., her mother called police. I do not see that distinction as important.
402Justice Roberts held at para. 15 that:
Notwithstanding these distinctions, I agree with the Crown that the pattern of identifying vulnerability, creating an apparent debt, isolating each woman, and pressuring each woman to “re-pay” the debt through sex work remains. As does Mr. Rahi’s use of his dog business to isolate each woman (albeit in different ways). I am satisfied that this pattern rises from general propensity to a very specific propensity to act in a particular way in particular circumstances. It is an “observed pattern of propensity operating in a closely defined and circumscribed context” (Handy, para.91). It suggests that Mr. Rahi had a specific “system”, and operated in conformity with his system (R. v. Batte (2000), 2000 CanLII 5751 (ON CA), 145 C.C.C. (3d) 449 at para.102). This pattern of propensity is so specific and so linked or similar to the human trafficking offences alleged in relation to AK that the possibility of mere coincidence or mistake is slight. As a result, I am satisfied that the proposed similar fact evidence has probative value as propensity evidence. In reaching this conclusion, I am mindful that there are only two accounts. Nonetheless I am satisfied that the specificity of the pattern provides probative value.
403Defence counsel has also focused on what she characterizes as the non-distinct character of allegedly similar facts while going through the Handy factors. Justice Roberts however, in reviewing the Handy factors, noted at para. 13 that many of the similarities are quite generic, “such as arranging for advertisements on Backpages, using Bitcoin to pay for the advertisements, posting the ads, communicating with clients, making decisions about rates and services, arranging and paying for hotels, paying for condoms, waiting in his car in the parking lot.” However, as I have already set out, she went on to find that some of the points of similarity are quite specific.
404The Crown has advanced a new argument that she submits reinforces the similarities, namely that the advertisements for A.K. and for K.H. share similarities. The advertisements use similar language. For example, “Tiny redhead” for A.K.’s advertisements, and “Tiny blond” for K.H.’s advertisements. The marketing language stresses a travelling theme: “second time in town” for A.K.’s advertisements and “here for the weekend” for K.H.’s advertisements. Both advertisements use the word “barbi” likely meant as “Barbie” which as the Crown submits is an unusual spelling. The websites where these advertisements appeared are the same – they were both advertised on the Backpage and Eroticmugshots websites.
405I agree with the Crown that these similarities in the advertisements, coupled with the fact that Mr. Rahi is the only connection between the two women, further supports the specific propensity identified by Justice Roberts.
406Finally, it is conceded that A.K. and K.H. did not know each other and I have given reasons for why I have found that T.J. did not coach A.K. with respect to her evidence of human trafficking. There is absolutely no evidence of collusion that has emerged that negates the pattern or provides another explanation that could explain the similarities in their evidence.
407I recognize that Justice Roberts did not consider the credibility of K.H. as a witness and I must consider that based only on the transcripts of her evidence as she did not give any viva voce evidence. No issue was raised by Defence counsel challenging K.H.’s credibility and reliability as a witness. The only issue discussed in oral submissions was that it is not clear which photographs K.H. identified were used in the advertisements posted by Mr. Rahi. There is no argument however that there was any similarity in terms of poses or what each woman was wearing and the fact that K.H. testified that she took the photos herself, as compared to A.K.’s evidence that Mr. Rahi’s wife took them, is not a similarity that Justice Roberts relied upon nor an important distinction in my view.
408In the cross-examination of K.H., Defence counsel confirmed that she had had memory issues since she was 12. There was no material issue exposed in that regard in terms of K.H.’s memory of her key allegations. She did point out on one occasion, when she could not remember something specific that was asked, that the events in issue had taken place five years earlier. K.H. was also questioned about her statement to police in September 2018 but the inconsistencies were not significant. Counsel also explored inconsistencies in K.H.’s evidence about her use of “speed”. Defence counsel also obtained admissions that K.H. did not disclose the money she made delivering dogs for Mr. Rahi although she was on Ontario Works. However, she later testified that it was less than $200 and that she was allowed to earn some money while on Ontario Works. Finally, K.H. was asked about a car that Mr. Rahi purchased for her and the fact that the loan for it was never fully paid by her providing sexual services. K.H. denied fabricating her allegations so that Mr. Rahi would go to jail, and so she would not have to pay him back the money that was owed for the car. In summary, K.H.’s evidence in chief about the allegations was not challenged in a way that would discount her evidence on her main allegations. I find that her evidence about the similar facts is true.
409I recognize that I must not use the similar fact evidence of K.H. to find that Mr. Rahi is a person whose character or disposition is such that it makes it more likely that he committed the offences that he was charged with in connection with A.K. or that he deserves to be punished for past misconduct in connection with K.H. In fact, as stated, I did not rely on any of the similar fact evidence of K.H. for finding Mr. Rahi guilty of the offences I have convicted him of.
410However, for the reasons set out in the decision of Justice Roberts and the reasons I have given, I find that the level of specific similarity between the evidence of A.K. and K.H. demonstrated a very specific propensity or distinctive pattern of conduct on the part of Mr. Rahi to take advantage of A.K. and K.H. when they were vulnerable, create a situation where they felt indebted to him, isolate them and then demand repayment of the debt owed to him by forcing them to work in the sex trade. In both cases the fact he used his dog breeding business to lure them and isolate them makes this pattern highly specific and this bolsters the credibility and reliability of the evidence of A.K. on her core allegations of human trafficking and her allegation of forced fellatio. I do not find however that the similar fact evidence of K.H. eliminates the reasonable doubt I have with respect to A.K.’s allegations of sexual assault by forced vaginal intercourse while she was still at T.J.’s home, as there are simply not enough specific similarities to give K.H.’s evidence in that regard probative value.
CITATION: R. v. Rahi, 2026 ONSC 413
COURT FILE NO.: CR-22-50000481
DATE: 20260123
ONTARIO
SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE
HIS MAJESTY THE KING
– and –
KALIB RAHI
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT
SPIES J.
Released: January 23, 2026
Edited Decision Released: January 29, 2026
Footnotes
- Croll J. ordered that A.K. be permitted to testify via video link pursuant to s. 714.1 of the Criminal Code: see R. v. Rahi, 2024 ONSC 6482. Mr. Rahi also agreed that T.J. could testify via Zoom.
- This evidence was never challenged. Although it is reasonable to assume that Mr. Rahi took his dogs with him when he and A.K. were kicked out of T.J.’s home, as I will come to, no evidence was led as to what happened to his dogs.
- This becomes important to an argument made by the defence that when A.K. had an opportunity to refresh her memory she always deferred to the evidence she had given before – an argument I do not accept, for reasons I will come to.
- Although I presume this was put to T.J. to establish a prior inconsistency, the fact she did not adopt her earlier evidence is important as it undermines the defence theory that T.J. has a motive to paint Mr. Rahi in the worst possible light.
- There was no evidence as to who George was.
- This evidence was not clarified and so there is no evidence that Mr. Rahi had this dog with him at T.J’s home among the dogs he had there.
- I note as well that it was admitted that these photographs contained images of A.K.
- We lost one day in that period as defence counsel was unavailable.
- A.K. was not asked to explain this but Narcan is well known as a drug that reverses the effect of an opioid.