“He took my dignity,” said one of the women who testified against Samuel Moderie on Thursday. “It’s like he erased a part of my life.”
This story contains details some readers may find disturbing.
One after another, several women testified at the Montreal courthouse on Thursday and called Samuel Moderie a monster while describing the impact he had on their lives after he drugged them and, in most cases, sexually assaulted them.
Late last year, Moderie, 29, of St-Zotique, pleaded guilty to nearly two dozen criminal charges related to how he drugged and sexually abused 13 women. In some cases, the victims were abused in their homes in Montreal and in municipalities spread out north of the city, including Laval, St-Jérôme and Brownsburg-Chatham.
In all, Moderie pleaded guilty to nine counts of sexual assault, two counts of administering a stupefying or overpowering drug, 11 counts of disseminating an intimate image of a person without their consent and one count of possession of benzodiazepine, a drug that slows brain activity.
The case is now in the sentencing stage and on Thursday, Quebec Court Judge Pierre Dupras heard women testify about the impact Moderie’s abuse has had on their lives. If there was one theme in common, it was that the victims are having great difficulty recovering from something they can’t remember.
Investigators learned of most of Moderie’s crimes after his cellphone was seized during a sexual assault investigation and disturbing photos and videos of him abusing women while they were in a drugged state were found on it. Many of the women learned from investigators that they had been sexually assaulted after police tracked them down.
One woman who testified Thursday said it was difficult to do so knowing that investigators and lawyers in the case have seen a video of what Moderie did to her while she doesn’t ever want to see it.
“He took my dignity,” said one woman. “It’s like he erased a part of my life. He stole a part of my life.
“He broke my spirit.”
Dupras heard from eight women in all Thursday morning, and prosecutor Jérôme Laflamme read a letter from another woman into the court record.
“She did not want to come today. It was too much for her (to come to the courthouse),” the prosecutor said before he began reading the letter.
“I took a lot of time to write this statement and I had to push myself several times,” the woman wrote. “I did not want to look back and recall what happened and relive events. I am experiencing different emotions, including shame, disgust, a loss of control, but above all rage.”
Laflamme also produced a series of evaluations done on Moderie by experts into evidence.
When defence lawyer Robert Bellefeuille was asked if he had any evidence, he simply let his client testify.
Moderie started off by apologizing “for all the harm I caused.”
“In October 2021, the mother of my child had a car accident and our son died when he was five years old,” he said. “This death changed my life. Unfortunately, I reacted poorly. I started (consuming speed again). I was no longer myself.
“I need help and I will do everything (to change) in the future, to not reoffend and to recognize the assaults I committed.”
Lawyers from both sides are expected to make their arguments on a sentence Thursday afternoon.