ByWard Market bar manager acquitted in 2015 sex assault charge

For the last seven years, Mariano De Marinis has been fighting a sex assault charge from his bar manager days in the ByWard Market.

But this past week in a resounding acquittal, De Marinis, 37, was cleared after Ontario Superior Court Justice Robyn Ryan Bell ruled that the complainant — a 19-year-old bar trainee at the time — was an unreliable, untrustworthy witness.The woman’s testimony was riddled in contradiction, and, after the judge listed nine significant inconsistencies, she noted there were even more she didn’t.

“I find that the totality of the problems with her testimony make her account both unreliable and untrustworthy. I conclude that it would be dangerous to convict based on (the complainant’s testimony),” the judge said.

The acquittal, secured by defence lawyers Oliver Abergel and Keara Lundrigan, was an unmistakeable vindication for De Marinis, who has always maintained the sexual encounter had been consensual.

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Read Gary Dimmock’s full story: Ottawa Citizen