'Tell them you were lying': Robin Wortman guilty of trying to derail upcoming sexual assault trial

A Calgary judge had scathing words for an alleged sexual predator and former Homeless Foundation board member who was convicted of obstructing justice by trying to convince his alleged victim to recant his evidence to police.

Robin Wortman, 64, was convicted on Monday of three charges: obstruction of justice and breaching two no-contact orders.

While being held at the Calgary Remand Centre in 2016, Wortman, who was not supposed to have any contact with the young man he is accused of sexually assaulting, first dropped a bag of Cheetos at the alleged victim's cell and then slipped a note under the door, telling the complainant he needed to tell police he was lying.

At issue during the trial was credibility — whether provincial court Judge Cheryl Daniel believed Wortman or his alleged victim, whose identity is protected by a publication ban.

"I do not believe the accused," Daniel wrote in her decision.

"His evidence was evasive, defensive, deceptive, uncertain, stilted, internally and externally inconsistent, made no logical sense, was consistently self-serving and generally untruthful.

"He had significant motivation to lie and that is exactly what he did at trial."

'Tell them you were lying'

The trial Wortman was trying to derail is coming up in February and includes charges of sexual assault, sexual exploitation, drug trafficking and child pornography-related offences.

Prosecutors Donna Spaner and Sarah Goard-Baker, who ran Wortman's breach and obstruction trial, will also prosecute him next month.

The alleged victim, whose testimony Daniel found credible, was 17 years old when Wortman is accused of having a non-consensual sexual relationship with him. 

Daniel noted the complainant was a meth addict, homeless and hungry when he first met Wortman in 2016.

In 2018, both Wortman and his alleged victim were being housed at the Calgary Remand Centre. Wortman was under a court order to have no contact with the complainant.

That October, Wortman dropped a bag of Cheetos outside the young man's cell. Two days later, he slid a note under the same cell asking his alleged victim to recant his allegations. Included on the note were the names and phone numbers for Wortman's lawyer and the Crown prosecutors involved in his case.

"Call them when you get out because you are the only thing keeping me from getting bail and tell them you were lying," the note read.

'No remote air of reality'

During his testimony at the trial, Wortman said it was the complainant who initiated contact with him and offered to recant the version of events he'd told police.

Daniel found his explanation "evasive, misleading and self-serving" and "factually inaccurate."

The judge said there was "no remote air of reality" to Wortman's story and said he invented interactions that never took place. 

"He can't keep his concocted stories straight," she wrote.

In 2017, Wortman was found not guilty of raping a homeless teen even though the judge said she did not believe his testimony. 

During that trial, he did admit to using drugs with the vulnerable teens in his apartment, which was across the street from Avenue 15, a shelter for homeless youth. He testified he bought and smoked crystal meth with underage girls and boys who were more than 45 years younger than him. 

Last September, Wortman was found guilty of four breach charges for attending an event where children were present, using the internet and for having a cellphone.

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