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Fort Laird man dangerous offender Laura Busch Northern News Services Published Monday, March 26, 2012
Justice Virginia Schuler sentenced Dennis Sassie, 41, to an indefinite period of jail time after hearing the case, which included evidence of more than two decades of violence. A determinate sentence - for a fixed amount of time - is not appropriate in Sassie's case because he is at great risk to re-offend, said Schuler. Since 1988, the year Sassie turned 18, he has been found guilty of 11 violent acts, including three separate sexual assault convictions. The victims of his sexual assaults range in age from six to 65. His most recent conviction, which led to the dangerous offender ruling, was for forcing his way into a home and sexually assaulting an elderly woman in November 2008. Throughout his October trial, the court heard about Sassie's troubled past and hard upbringing. The youngest of nine children, Sassie struggled in school and did not get past Grade 4. Both of his parents allegedly drank excessively throughout his childhood, and his father died when Sassie was between 12 and 14 years old. Sassie alleges that two people he was close to sexually assaulted him when he was a child, though there are no court or police records to substantiate his claim. He blames these incidents for his lifelong struggle with anger and alcoholism. In 2010, two psychiatrists conducted a 60-day evaluation of Sassie to determine how likely he was to be rehabilitated and be safely re-introduced into society. Both of the Toronto-based doctors testified in NWT court last October that Sassie exhibited a lack of remorse, empathy, and a failure to accept responsibility for his actions. The doctors placed him in the highest risk category to re-offend and diagnosed Sassie with antisocial personality disorder, dependence on alcohol and drugs, and paraphilic disorder - the latter being a lifelong inappropriate sexual preference. When Sassie took the stand in his own defence, he agreed that if he was let out of jail, he would consent to taking sex drive reduction medication and other medication that would make him physically ill if he consumed alcohol. Along with his indeterminate prison sentence, Sassie was ordered to provide a sample of his DNA, prohibited from owning or using firearms for life, and will be placed on the national sex offender registry for 20 years. He will remain in prison until he can prove before a court that he has been rehabilitated and is unlikely to re-offend. The purpose of declaring someone a dangerous offender is to protect Canadians from violent or sexual offenders who pose a high risk to re-offend.
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