A man deemed a high-risk offender is once again back behind bars. Medhani Yohans, 37, left the Maplehurst Correctional Complex in Milton on Friday afternoon. The court laid out one major condition for his release – stay away from downtown Guelph. “[Yohans] travelled from Maplehurst back to the City of Guelph and shortly thereafter and was observed by our officers in the downtown core,” said Scott Tracey, a media relations coordinator for the Guelph Police Service. The bus dropped him off downtown, but police said he didn’t appear to be in a hurry to leave. “Our allegation is that, once he got off the bus, he did not vacate the downtown,” explained Tracey. “He spent some time shopping, going in various stores [and] walking around. He had ample opportunity to leave the downtown, to get outside the borders that he had been ordered to stay away from. He did not do so.” Yohans was then arrested by the officers. “We had to step in and take him back into custody because he showed that he was not going to comply with those conditions,” Tracey said. Yohans was charged with nine counts of breaching probation orders. Since July 2025, the 37-year-old has been in and out of police custody. He was initially told to stay away from specific addresses but, after violating that stipulation multiple times, the banned area was expanded to include all of city’s downtown area. Yohans has a history of violence, including two sexual assaults involving strangers. On at least two occasions, police warned the public about his release, describing him as a high-risk offender. “We believe Mr. Yohans to represent a threat to the community, that’s why we’ve, a number of the times in the past, released his name and photo to warn the community that he was at large,” said Tracey. CTV News asked why a similar alert wasn’t issued on Friday. “We were certainly aware in the days leading up to his release that he was going to be released at that time,” Tracey said. “Frankly, we were intending to, but he was arrested so quickly that we didn’t get that warning out to the public.” He said police are doing what they can to protect the community. “Once the sentence has been served, as in this case, it takes him out of the court’s hands and the correctional services hands. Then the onus falls on the police,” Tracey explained. “All necessary resources have to be expended to mitigate that risk and to do whatever we can to ensure the safety of the community.”
