Accused in 'sexsomnia' case denies having sex with alleged victim
Credit to Author: Keith Fraser| Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2019 02:06:33 +0000
A man who claims he has a sleep disorder known as “sexsomnia” denied Tuesday any knowledge of having had sex with a woman who alleges she was sexually assaulted by him.
Karl Richard Antonius, 51, made the statement as he took the stand in his own defence at his trial in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver.
The Vancouver businessman has pleaded not guilty to one count of sexually assaulting a woman he’d taken out on a blind date in September 2015.
He is raising a rare defence in a criminal trial, claiming that at the time of the incident he was having an episode of “sexsomnia” — namely that he was asleep at the time and therefore his actions were involuntary.
The alleged victim, who cannot be identified due to a publication ban imposed by the trial judge, testified that during their blind date they’d gone back to Antonius’s apartment in the Fairmont Pacific Rim luxury hotel in Downtown Vancouver.
She said she’d lost her keys to her own apartment and had accepted Antonius’s invitation back to his place but that she had no interest in having sex with him.
After Antonius had given her some shorts and a T-shirt, she got into the bed and had to swat his hand away after he groped her, she said.
Later she woke to him engaging in sexual intercourse without her consent, she told the judge.
But in his testimony, Antonius, an executive with a mining company, said that he got into bed first and that when she got into bed, he put his hand on her bottom.
“The idea was just to cuddle and to go to sleep,” he said, adding that they then went to sleep.
Under questioning from defence lawyer Bill Smart, he said his next recollection was standing in front of the refrigerator in the kitchen but having no memory as to how he got there.
When he went back to the bedroom, he saw a light on in the bathroom and after knocking on the door asked if she was OK, he said.
She told him that she’d talked to a friend and wanted to go home and a short while later she uttered a swear word in a low voice, he said.
Antonius said he believed that she was angry because she’d been locked out of her apartment for a while.
“Was there anything to indicate to you that you had had sex with her,” said Smart.
“No,” replied Antonius.
The accused said that they both got dressed and went down in the elevator and before she got into a taxi to go home, he asked her for a kiss goodbye. He said she declined a kiss.
“She was angry about being locked out of her apartment,” he said.
Antonius is the president of Boreal Metals Corp., a mineral exploration company focused on the discovery of zinc, copper, silver, gold and cobalt deposits in mining properties in Sweden and Norway.
He is expected to continue his testimony Wednesday. In January the trial will resume with testimony from experts on the issue of sexsomnia.