A dangerous-offender hearing will be held early next year for a repeat sex offender who broke into a Halifax woman’s apartment and raped her in June 2018.
Sem Paul Obed, 49, pleaded guilty in Nova Scotia Supreme Court last January to four charges in connection with the incident: break and enter, aggravated sexual assault, choking to overcome resistance, and breaching a 2016 peace bond by consuming or possessing alcohol.
Obed, who’s originally from Happy Valley-Goose Bay, N.L., has 39 previous criminal convictions going back to the 1980s, including multiple convictions for sexual assault.
A forensic psychiatrist performed a dangerous-offender assessment on Obed this summer. After receiving the doctor’s report, the Crown formally applied to have Obed declared a dangerous offender.
Dates for the dangerous-offender hearing were set Wednesday, when Obed appeared in Supreme Court in Halifax by video from a correctional facility.
Justice Robert Wright scheduled the matter for five days beginning Feb. 16 and another five days beginning April 6.
If Obed is designated a dangerous offender, he will receive an indeterminate prison sentence unless the court believes a lesser penalty would adequately protect the public. That would be a determinate sentence with or without long-term supervision in the community for up to 10 years after his release.
A woman who lived on Cunard Street woke up on the morning of June 1, 2018, to find Obed standing beside her bed, wearing only a baseball cap and basketball sneakers.
Obed knew the woman’s roommate, who was out of town. He ripped the blankets off her, told her not to scream and said he was going to hurt her.
The woman attempted to fight Obed off, but he punched and tried to strangle her before sexually assaulting her.
The attack lasted more than an hour, the victim estimated. Obed told her that if she called the cops after he left, “I’m going to find you.”
He whispered “bye, take care” in her ear as he left and said her roommate had his number if she wanted to call him.
Police contacted the woman’s roommate and arrested Obed that afternoon at about 4:30 at his apartment on McFatridge Road in Halifax. He had the victim’s blood on his face.
Defence lawyer Brad Sarson has told the court Obed was highly intoxicated at the time of the break-in and doesn’t remember everything that happened.
Sean McCarroll, who is prosecuting the case with Carla Ball, said the Crown believes Obed should be locked up indefinitely. He said Obed’s record shows a pattern of sexual violence against women.
Obed also has convictions for attempted murder, aggravated assault, assault with a weapon, assault causing bodily harm, break and enter, attempted break and enter, trespassing at night and mischief.
Police issued high-risk offender notifications about Obed in 1999 and 2014 after he was released from prison and moved to Halifax. The Crown obtained a two-year peace bond against Obed in Dartmouth provincial court in August 2016.
