Accused in Halifax sex attack changes plea to guilty on two charges

HALIFAX, N.S. — A Ukrainian national has accepted responsibility for a sex attack on a Halifax student at her apartment building last January, sparing the young woman from having to testify about the terrifying experience. 

Mykhailo Bielinskyi’s trial in Halifax provincial court on a total of six charges got underway Oct. 19 with evidence from police officers and was supposed to continue Thursday with testimony from the complainant.

But after meeting with his lawyer in the basement of the courthouse, Bielinskyi decided to plead guilty to two charges: assault causing bodily harm and sexual assault.

The 24-year-old Halifax resident, who has been in custody since the day of the incident, will be sentenced in January.

Lawyers do not expect to have a joint sentencing recommendation for Judge Ann Marie Simmons.

Crown attorneys Alicia Kennedy and Ben Hoskins said they will ask for a sentence well in excess of the two years required for incarceration in a federal penitentiary.

The attack happened Jan. 15 at about 5:15 a.m. in various common areas of an apartment building on Brunswick Street in Halifax. It went on for several minutes and much of it was captured on security video that was played in court Thursday.

There’s a publication ban on the identity of the victim, who is in her early 20s.

Began in elevator

According to the agreed facts read into the record by Kennedy, the young woman was on her way home from her part-time job when she ended up in the elevator of the high rise with Bielinskyi, who was a stranger.

Bielinskyi indicated he was going to the 10th floor. He exited the elevator when it reached that floor but stepped back in before the doors closed and pressed the button for that floor again.

“At that point, she became nervous and realized that something wasn’t right,” Kennedy said of the victim.

Bielinskyi stepped toward the woman and tried to kiss her, saying he was sorry. She pushed him away and got off the elevator when it stopped on the 11th floor.

The woman ran into a stairwell with Bielinskyi in pursuit. She made it to the landing between the 11th and 12th floors before he caught her and forced her to the floor.

Bielinskyi kissed her and pulled the two jackets she was wearing up over her head, causing her to fear for her life. He pinched her nose, put his hands over her mouth and then put her in a chokehold as they continued to fight in the stairwell, and she bit his fingers at one point.

Kennedy said the victim thought Bielinksyi was trying to either rob her or rape her. She told him that if he wanted money, she would give him some, and that if it was about sex, they could go to her apartment on an upper floor, where she knew her roommate could help her.

The woman eventually crawled into the lobby of the 12th floor, where she tried to place a call with her cellphone before Bielinskyi ripped it out of her hands. She tried to negotiate with him, pointing out that there were video cameras in the area.

Bielinkyi told her to stop yelling and, after she retrieved her phone and again tried to make a call, dragged her into a hallway. While she banged on an apartment door, desperately trying to get someone’s attention, Bielinskyi got on top of her, punched her and hit her head off the floor.

He tried to take her pants off, spread her legs and was rubbing his groin against her when a man who heard the commotion came down the hallway and “effectively stopped the assault,” Kennedy said.

After he was confronted by the man, who took a swing at him, Bielinskyi sat down on the floor for a few minutes. He got up and paced around and began removing his clothes.

The woman, who had fled down the hallway, used a different stairwell to go upstairs to her apartment.

911 calls

The victim called 911 at 5:44 a.m. Halifax Regional Police had already responded to the building after receiving other calls.

Officers located and arrested Bielinskyi on the sixth floor of the building at about 6:30 a.m.

Kennedy said the victim’s physical injuries included a scratch on her nose and soreness all over, especially her forehead and the back of her head. The psychological harm was more severe, and the woman suffers from anxiety and fearfulness “to this day,” the prosecutor told The Chronicle Herald.

Bielinskyi’s brother, who was interviewed by police, said he and his brother worked until 4 p.m. the day before, went home, made dinner and drank a half-litre of whiskey or rum between them.

They then went to The Dome, a nightclub in downtown Halifax, where the brother estimated they each had about four shots of hard liquor between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m. He said he got separated from his brother when the bar closed, and he wasn’t able to reach him.

“Mr. Bielinskyi does not recall the incident,” defence lawyer Leslie Hogg told the court.

Her client did not live in that building, Hogg said.

A Ukrainian interpreter translated Thursday’s proceedings for Bielinskyi. Kennedy said Bielinskyi is not a Canadian citizen and there will be immigration consequences as a result of the convictions.

Bielinskyi was also charged with choking to overcome resistance, uttering threats, forcible confinement and property mischief. Those charges will be dismissed after he is sentenced on the other two counts.