Crime - Stalker guilty on new charges

Gary Michael Leasak harassed more than 30 women

By Pamela Roth
Staff Reporter

An Okotoks man believed to be responsible for stalking and harassing more than 30 women during an 11-year period admitted in the Court of Queen’s Bench in Calgary last Wednesday to committing more crimes.
Gary Michael Leasak, 37, pleaded guilty to nine counts of criminal harassment, in which more than 30 complainants are involved, and one count of possession of stolen property under $5,000 involving three of the 32 complainants.
“There were no surprises,” said Crown Prosecutor Susan Kennedy about the guilty pleas. “We’ve been working on this case for a long time.”
During the fall of 2002, Okotoks RCMP had collected a number of criminal and harassment complaints from several women residing in town, ranging from obscene telephone calls, harassing hang-up calls and silent calls, to obscene graffiti targeting some of the victims’ mailboxes and personal property, and being followed from place to place.
It was later revealed a number of the female complainants came to the attention of Leasak as a result of them attending his work place, their own place of work, or by living in the same building and neighbourhood.
A 19-page agreed statement of facts from defense lawyer Alain Hepner and Kennedy revealed how Leasak stalked and harassed the woman in several different ways.
Aside from writing sexually explicit graffiti on 10 of the victims’ mailboxes and seven of the women’s personal vehicles, Leasak would also leave clippings of pornographic magazines on their vehicles while parked at home or other locations.
The clippings would depict a woman, who is usually the same hair colour as the complainant, in different sexual positions or acts.
One complainant ob-served Leasak looking up her dress while shopping at a local drug store 10 years ago.
Six years later, the same complainant began receiving obscene sexual phone calls in the early morning hours that were traced to a local payphone.
Pornographic magazines, that had her initials written on the left hand corner, were left at the complainant’s residence prior to one phone call.
Explicit graffiti, addressed specifically to her, was also written on her mailbox the same day.
During that same year, another complainant began receiving phone calls from Leasak at a rate of three calls per week over a period of one year. The caller made several specific remarks on her breast size and the type of underwear she wore.
Although Leasak followed much of the same pattern with most of the women he harassed, he took it a step further with others by stalking them while they were about town.
A search warrant of Leasak’s residence was finally executed by police on Nov. 22, 2004 and uncovered some personal belongings of the complainants, along with an original Golden 39 M.22-calibre rifle.
Bras, female underwear, clippings of local newspapers depicting a large number of local females, many of which were victims of criminal harassment in the matter, and a log including more than 150 names and phone numbers of females, including one of the complainants, was also recovered at the residence.
Leasak was taken into custody in December, 2004.
The accused, who was ordered to undergo a psychiatric assessment, also pleaded guilty to breaching bail conditions by contacting one of the victims and careless storage of a .22-calibre rifle.
The victim impact statements and sentencing arguments will be heard Oct. 27 in Calgary.