Court denies application from accused rapist Grant Cichacki

Grant Lee Cichacki is shown in an undated photo. (Obtained by CTV News)

The court has ruled that sexual assault charges involving seven women, all alleged victims of Calgary bar manager Grant Cichacki, will be heard together at trial.

Meanwhile, an eighth charge, involving another female victim, will be heard separately.

The Alberta Court of King’s Bench made the ruling on Feb. 21, after Cichacki applied for seven separate trials to deal with the charges against him.

Justice M.H. Bourque found that severance of the sexual assault charges was not required for counts one through seven against Cichacki, which all were from former employees who allege he drugged and sexually assaulted them at various times between 2006 and 2019.

“The Crown alleges that the Accused assaulted eight complainants. The Crown alleges that he used his position as the manager, boss and owner of various nightclubs to ply young women with alcohol, and allegedly spike their drinks with drugs, rendering them incapable of consenting to sexual activity,” Bourque wrote.

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In the application, Cichacki’s defence counsel Alain Hepner sought to divide the charges in the trial because, as Borque put it, “the most obvious risk is that the evidence admissible on one count will influence the verdict on another.”

“Defence counsel submits that a trial of multiple sets of offences within a single indictment gives rise to the risk that evidence related to certain counts may improperly affect the verdict on other unrelated counts. The sheer number of complainants alone significantly heightens the risk that the evidence admissible on one count will influence the verdict on unrelated counts,” Bourque said.

Meanwhile, Crown prosecutors submitted that the similar fact evidence is “highly relevant” and therefore the counts must be heard together.

Evidence against the accused

Cichacki faces eight counts of sexual assault involving eight different complainants, whose identities are protected by a publication ban.

The earliest alleged offence occurred on May 9, 2006, between A.W. and the accused, the court said.

A.W., who was a coworker of Cichacki, said she agreed to meet him for drinks at the bar where they worked.

She drove with him to his home to stay the night but told the accused she would not sleep with him.

“They sat on his couch when they arrived at the accused’s residence. The accused’s roommate was home but asleep, and A.W. did not see him. The accused offered her another drink, but she only drank one sip. The accused then offered to give her a back massage, which she accepted. The accused provided A.W. with a change of clothes to get comfortable, which she also accepted,” the court document reads.

A.W. followed him to his bedroom and, during the massage, she alleges she could not move or speak and could not fight back.

The next morning, the victim had the accused drive her back to the bar where her car was parked and then took her home using her vehicle.

A.W. then went to the hospital and underwent a sexual assault response team exam and toxicology test.

“A.W.’s toxicology results tested positive for ethanol and amphetamine. Hospital staff contacted the police, who arrived and obtained a statement,” the court said.

The next alleged offence, involving victim A.S., another of Cichacki’s employees, occurred on July 13, 2013.

A.S. met Cichacki at Cowboys while out with friends at the Calgary Stampede. She became separated from her friends and instead went with Cichacki to drink with him.

“At the end of the night, A.S. agreed to get into a vehicle with the accused. She believed they were heading to another bar but realized the accused was taking them to his residence. She confronted him about why he did not say they were going to his residence,” the court said.

Once at Cichacki’s home, the victim alleges she was given another drink and told him she was tired and wanted to sleep.

She then went to his bedroom, got into bed and went to sleep, fully clothed.

A.S. said her next memory was waking up to find Cichacki sexually assaulting her.

“He eventually stopped and rolled over and fell asleep. A.S. lay on her bed crying until she heard him snoring at which point she left,” the court heard.

The third offence, alleged to have occurred in June 2016, involved H.H., an employee at a bar owned by Cichacki. She came forward to police in January 2024 after seeing a media report about his previous charges.

H.H. alleges she accompanied Cichacki to purchase alcohol for the restaurant and then later drove to Cowboys Casino for drinks.

“The accused ordered and bought shots for her, and she consumed one Jager shot. She completely lost her memory following this one shot,” the court said.

H.H. then alleges she woke up in an “unfamiliar residence” and “instantly knew she had been drugged and raped.”

“She gathered her clothes and ran downstairs. There was nobody inside the residence. She grabbed a piece of mail with the accused’s name on it and called a taxi to take her home.”

When H.H. confronted Cichacki about the incident, he told her she had gotten drunk and “made a fool of herself.”

He denied having sex with her.

J.F., the fourth victim, alleged that Cichacki assaulted her in September 2016 while she was one of his employees.

At a going-away party, the accused bought her a drink and when she consumed it, she said she felt “weird.”

She said Cichacki brought her to another bar and later helped her into the back seat of a truck where he pulled her onto his lap.

Her next memory was arriving at his home, where he began to pull her upstairs to his bedroom.

“He pushed her onto the bed, turned off the lights and got on top of her. She recalls wrestling with the accused and trying to push him away. This was her last memory before she passed out,” Bourque wrote.

J.F. said she continued to work at the bar for another six months as she didn’t want people to “get at her” or lose her job.

She reported the assault to police after learning about the charges against Cichacki in December 2023.

A.J. and A.Q., two other employees of Cichacki, allege he sexually assaulted them on separate occasions on July 13, 2017.

The victims were friends and met the accused at a Diplo concert inside the Cowboys Stampede tent.

They drank with him and later shared a cab to go to an after-party.

On their way to the party, Cichacki stopped at his home to make them drinks.

“A.Q. and another individual went into the garage to vape. A.J. sat on a couch in the living room and consumed the drink. After consuming the drink, A.J. kept passing in and out of consciousness. She was out of it. A.J. found it unusual that one drink would have knocked her out,” the court said.

A.J. alleges her next memory was waking up to Cichacki sexually assaulting her, but she passed out again.

When she woke up again, the found herself naked and “still felt very groggy.”

She got up and got dressed and asked Cichacki to call her a cab.

A.J. did not report the incident to police because they had mutual friends and was still working at the pub.

She came forward with her report in October 2023.

That same day, A.Q. alleged she was feeling strange and felt like something had been put into her drink to make her “screwed up.”

She was talking with Cichacki in the garage when he suddenly turned off the light and she couldn’t see anything.

A.Q. then said the accused pushed her to the floor and sexually assaulted her.

Afterward, she alleges Cichacki took her inside the house and upstairs to his bedroom where he assaulted her again.

“A.Q. managed to grab her phone and call a friend, and A.Q. lay there crying on the phone, unable to speak. A.Q. asked her friend to come and get her.”

After the assault was over, A.Q. went downstairs and found A.J. passed out on the couch. She attempted to wake her up, but said Cichacki told her she could stay.

“A.Q. just wanted to get out of there, and she thought A.J. would be fine since she knew the accused from before,” the court document said.

A.Q. said she continued to work at the bar for another month “because she needed the job” and did not report the incident until Dec. 12, 2023.

The seventh victim, M.J. was an exotic dancer who met Cichacki while he was a manager in the nightclub industry.

He invited her for dinner on April 23, 2019, where they consumed a number of drinks.

The court documents says, “the accused repeatedly pressured her to drink” and the pair later went to Cowboys.

“MJ’s next memory was waking up the next morning with the accused lying naked next to her. When she asked the accused why she was in his bed naked, he told her that they had engaged in unprotected sexual intercourse.”

She attempted to have a toxicology test after the incident, but said the lineup was too long and decided to go home.

The victim later met with her agent, “who expressed frustration that the accused had done similar things to other women.”

M.J. reported the incident to Medicine Hat police on May 2, 2019.

The eighth count against Cichacki

The final count of sexual assault against Cichacki stems from the account of N.F., who met the accused at Cowboys in 2015, when she was 18.

She was not an employee of Cichacki, but instead had a “father-like relationship” with him.

“He gave her love and support, and she stayed at his residence when her parents kicked her out. When she stayed at his residence, she felt comfortable staying in his bed, drunk and/or naked,” the court document reads.

During this time, N.F. said she felt obligated to perform sexual acts for him and engage in sexual activities with others.

N.F. said she was sexually assaulted by him twice, once when she was 21 and again when she was 24.

In the first incident, she told the court she was unaware of what was happening and said “phantom hands had been touching her body without her consent.”

In the second incident, during a rafting trip, N.F. said the accused insisted they have sex and made her feel “uncomfortable, manipulated, and forced by his words to have sex with him.”

“Following this incident, N.F. blocked him out of her life for a bit, but after she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, she let him back in.

“N.F. did not report the incidents to the police because she was worried the accused would distribute a sexual video of her and she was ‘trauma bonded’ to him.”

N.F. reported the assault to police on Nov. 9, 2023.

Judge’s ruling on severance

Bourque turned down the majority of the accused’s application, saying the similarities of facts in the first seven counts suggests they should be tried together.

“Severance of the counts would create an unnecessarily lengthy process, with multiple repetitions of expert evidence and lay evidence, including multiple repetitions of complainants’ evidence,” he wrote.

“I have also taken into account that the general prejudice to the accused is limited given this a judge-alone trial and the evidence is not inherently complex.”

However, Bourque did grant severance for count 8, given that “the factual nexus is sufficiently different.”

“N.F.’s allegations span a lengthier period and involve an exploitative relationship. Furthermore, Defence counsel has submitted that they may bring a section 276 application in the context of this charge.”

Cichacki’s lawyer denies the allegations and suggests that all the complainants were willing participants in the sexual activity or that the sexual activity did not occur.

In 2024, the Crown stayed proceedings against Cichacki in connection with allegations made by a 20-year-old victim.

The victim said she was drugged and sexually assaulted in December 2022, when she was 18.

She told CTV News after the hearing that “the justice system failed.”

The trial is scheduled to begin next month.