Neighbour let Yaremko into building where sexual assault, confinement happened, court hears

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Joseph Simon Peter Yaremko was in the company of someone who was trying to help him when he got into the Saskatoon condo building where he’s accused of later committing a random home invasion and sexual assault, Saskatoon Court of Queen’s Bench heard Wednesday.

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Yaremko, 39, is charged with breaking and entering to commit a sexual assault with a weapon (a knife) and forcible confinement.

His judge-alone trial is underway this week.

Trisha Hall, who said she met Yaremko on the day of the June 3, 2019 incident, was the first of five witnesses called by Crown prosecutor Evan Thompson.

Hall testified she was at her workplace when a man she later identified as Yaremko entered the building looking to use a phone.

She offered him the phone and a coffee before giving him a tour, then offered to give him a ride, she told court.

Yaremko seemed “frazzled,” and they ended up heading directly to her Stonebridge-area condo on Wellman Crescent so she could help him set up a phone he had with him, she said, telling court they stayed there talking for about three hours and sharing details about their lives.

Hall said Yaremko showed her pornographic images on a tablet and discussed them in a way that was “disturbing.” Eventually, they went out so he could meet someone at a gym, but he left behind a duffle bag he was carrying, she said.

While they waited outside, she noticed he was growing increasingly agitated, one of a series of “red flags” that cropped up through the day, Hall said. They made two more brief stops before going to a building called Applewood Manor, where he left and returned with a bloodied hand with visible glass shards sticking out of it, she testified.

Hall said Yaremko told her he’d done a good deed for someone, but others, specifically the police, might not see it that way.

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At that point, she was ready to part ways and they headed back to her condo so he could pick up his bag, she said. Hall’s roommate testified that Yaremko refused to leave their home, so she messaged Hall’s co-worker and told him she and Hall needed help. He contacted police.

They convinced him to leave with them, court heard. Video footage from the lobby of the building shows Yaremko take off running down an adjacent hallway from Hall’s unit around the time police arrived. Sometime later, the Crown’s case indicates Yaremko, armed with a knife, forced his way into the apartment of the alleged victim, where he repeatedly sexually assaulted her until she managed to get away the next morning. 

Saskatoon police Const. Garrett Boehm said Yaremko had locked himself in a bathroom in the woman’s unit when officers entered the building again, but they were able to convince him to come out.

A folding knife was found on a countertop in the bedroom where the victim said she had hid it during her testimony on Monday.

Defence lawyer Meagan Bortis argued Yaremko and Hall must have previously known each other, through Hall buying drugs from Yarmeko. Hall denied the accusation.

Bortis questioned why she would go so far out of her way for a stranger who had started to worry her.

“I was doing a good deed in the beginning. I was continuing to do a good deed at that time,” Hall said. “I was trying to help somebody I didn’t know.”

Yaremko’s trial is expected to conclude on Friday.

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