[DC83]

Denis Vranich sentenced to house arrest for attack

October 30, 2007
BY BARBARA BROWN
The Hamilton Spectator

A Hess Village businessman who sexually assaulted a female bartender will serve a year under house arrest.
He’s also barred from entering the village without the written permission of his conditional sentence supervisor.
Denis Vranich, 31, was ordered by Ontario Court Justice Bernd Zabel to wear an electronic-monitoring bracelet on his ankle while serving his conditional sentence. The 12-month term will be followed by a further year of reporting to a probation officer.
Vranich, who owns the property and manages the Elixir Lounge and Nightclub, pleaded guilty last month to sexually assaulting a 22-year-old staff member. He admitted to cornering and attacking the woman on the night of July 20, 2006, while she was bartending at a private, after-hours party.
The Ancaster man, who is involved in several property development projects around the city, made two separate appearances at the John Sopinka Courthouse yesterday. Earlier, he was found guilty of impaired driving and refusing a breathalyser demand by police.
Those charges arose on Aug. 11, 2006, after Vranich crashed a Porsche into a ditch while exiting the King Street West ramp to Highway 403. The sports car was destroyed and Vranich was dazed but not seriously injured.
This was Vranich’s first drinking-and-driving conviction, although he has 31 prior convictions under the Highway Traffic Act. “It’s certainly an atrocious driving record,” said Ontario Court Justice Don Cooper, who handed Vranich $1,600 in fines and suspended his licence for 18 months.
Under the terms of his conditional sentence and probation order for the sexual assault, Vranich is prohibited from consuming alcohol for two years.
Assistant Crown attorney Stan Dudzic told court at Vranich’s guilty plea last month that on the night the bartender was assaulted, she was dressed in a corset, garter belt and stockings in keeping with management’s “lingerie night” theme.
He said Vranich grabbed the woman, pulled down her bodice, groped her breasts and penetrated her with his finger.
The convicted man, the son of well-known property developer Darko Vranich, will have his name on the national sex offender registry for 10 years and a sample of his blood will be analyzed and submitted to Canada’s national criminal database.
The victim told Judge Zabel she felt defiled and humiliated after the assault.
“The thought of him makes me absolutely nauseous and brings on panic attacks,” she said in a victim impact statement.
“When I go anywhere and someone I used to work with is there, I leave immediately because I feel humiliated.”
The recommendation of the Crown and defence lawyer Dean Paquette for a period of house arrest caused a public outcry when it was reported in The Spectator last month.
Hamilton resident Crystal Stevens started a petition on Facebook to protest the proposed sentence.
She collected close to 1,700 names before the social networking website received a complaint and shut the group down.
Approximately 20 people, including Stevens and Lenore Lukasik-Foss, director of Hamilton’s Sexual Assault Centre, joined a walk on Saturday from the downtown courthouse to Hess Village to protest the sentence.
“If you’re being placed on the national sex offender registry, you should be spending some time in jail,” said Stevens.
In January 2001, Vranich was ordered to pay more than $85,000 in fines and surcharges after being convicted on three counts of prostitution-related offences and three charges of falsifying immigration records.
The charges were laid in 1999 following a joint police task force investigation into complaints that young Hungarian women were being lured to this country with the prospect of lucrative jobs as exotic dancers.
The section of the Criminal Code under which Vranich was convicted in 2001 refers to procuring persons under the age of 18 and exercising control over them to engage in prostitution.

— with files by Dana Borcea