Cara Loverock
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, July 16, 2008

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - A 52-year-old man was sentenced last Thursday to six months in jail for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in a hotel room where she had gone to meet her mother.

Gregory Jonasson must also submit to a DNA order and was ordered to have no contact with the girl after his release.

"There was a luring and an enticing aspect to this," said Judge Brian Bruser of Jonasson's actions.

The girl and her mother both testified during a trial on Wednesday.

The girl said her mother instructed her to meet her and her uncle at a hotel room at the Explorer Hotel on Feb. 2. When she got to the room her mother wasn't there, but Jonasson was. She left and returned later in hopes her mother would be there. She again found Jonasson alone in the room and decided to wait for her mother to show up.

"She continued to sit there because he insisted her mother would be there momentarily," Crown prosecutor Maryse Nassar told the court.

During her testimony, the girl broke down describing the assault in which Jonasson molested her when she was sitting on the bed.

Defence attorney Hugh Latimer questioned the girl's credibility since she did not immediately report the assault to front desk staff at the hotel, her mother or police. The girl said she informed RCMP roughly two to three weeks after the fact.

She also testified that after leaving the hotel the second time she joined her friends, whom she informed about the assault, and went to a soccer tournament.

Latimer also questioned her story given that she went to a sporting event instead of reporting the incident to authorities.

"Why should I doubt her credibility because she went to a soccer tournament?" said Bruser.

"Not every complainant in this type of situation is going to behave in a stereotypical way."

Jonasson did not testify in his own defence or address the court before his sentencing.