Gordon Stuckless pleads guilty to 100 charges in sex abuse scandal

CTV Toronto: Stuckless pleads guilty to charges Gordon Stuckless pleaded guilty to 100 new sexual assault charges involving 18 victims. Tamara Cherry has more.

The man at the centre of the Maple Leaf Gardens sex abuse scandal pleaded guilty Tuesday to 100 charges involving 18 victims.

Gordon Stuckless, 65, entered the plea in a Toronto courtroom in relation to offences that took place decades ago.

The charges include indecent assault, sexual assault and gross indecency and span from 1965 to 1985.

Stuckless pleaded not guilty to several charges, including sexual assault with a weapon and buggery, and his lawyer Ari Goldkind said a trial on those charges is expected to get underway in the next couple of weeks.

Crown attorney Kelly Beale is expected to request a dangerous offender assessment for Stuckless, but Goldkind said his client, who's on a sex offender registry, continues his chemical castration therapy and has been living "a very law-abiding life."

"Since 2001, he is not a danger to society," Goldkind said. "So again, if we call ourselves a lawful society, not just a vengeful society, Mr Stuckless doesn't come close to meeting the test for dangerous offender."

But Allan Donnan, one of his victims in an earlier case, said he wasn't convinced, given the scope of Stuckless's abuse.

"For 30 years, he was cold, he was calculated, he was premeditated, he thought about who, he thought about how, he thought about when," Donnan said outside court.

"What proof does anyone have that since he came out of jail there hasn't been a single recurrence?"

Stuckless was convicted in 1997 for sex assaults on 24 boys while he was an usher at Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens between 1969 and 1988.

But he was forced back in the spotlight when police announced fresh charges against him in alleged incidents dating back decades.

All charges relating to separate investigations by Toronto police and York Region police have been merged together.