MANDEL: Woman accusing Michael Thompson of sex assault testifies she feared for her life
The Toronto City Councillor has pleaded not guilty to two counts of sexual assault at a Muskoka cottage in 2022
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It was Canada Day weekend 2022 and Toronto City Councillor Michael Thompson came out of the cottage to greet her and her best friend.
In no time, she testified, he was pouring them vodka shots and offering a bowl filled with rolled joints.
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MANDEL: Woman accusing Michael Thompson of sex assault testifies she feared for her life Back to video
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“And he had said, ‘Whatever happens in Muskoka stays in Muskoka,'” she claims the councillor told them.
“I just took it as the whole Vegas thing. We’re just gonna have fun, drink, go on the boat, what not,” said the woman, whose identity is protected by a publication ban.
However, she alleges the Toronto politician took it much further later that night when he woke her from a drunken stupor and sexually assaulted her.
She is the second complainant to testify at Thompson’s trial in Bracebridge where the six-time Scarborough Centre councillor and former deputy mayor has pleaded not guilty to sexually assaulting two women that weekend.
At the opening of his judge-alone trial last fall, the prosecutor alleged Thompson lured the two women to the luxury Muskoka cottage owned by criminal defence lawyer Calvin Barry with promises of mentorship and networking opportunities, but he instead preyed on them after plying them with marijuana and alcohol.
The woman, in her early 40s, said she was never told anything about networking; her best friend had just asked her to come to a cottage party. But when they arrived on the Sunday, there was only one car parked in the driveway.
“Where is everyone else?” she recalled asking.
There was one other guest with Thompson – a young woman who appeared to be about 21.
“I specifically asked him how he knew (her), because I was confused, because she looks so young to me,” the woman testified. “And he just said that he likes to help Black people in the community, and he’s a pillar in the community, and he is likes to help people find muses.”
Thompson was working most of the time, she said, so she and the two other women spent most of the time outside by themselves, laughing, listening to music and drinking the two bottles of tequila that Thompson had run out to buy for her.
At one point, she said, Thompson joined them and asked to put sunscreen on her best friend.
That first complainant testified in December 2024 that Thompson rubbed his hands under her bikini, touching her buttocks and then her breasts while she lay on the dock.
The second complainant recalled that after dinner, and more drinks, she came inside to go to the bathroom. Thompson, she said, made her another mixed drink, though she couldn’t remember if she’d asked for it.
“I was very drunk. I was definitely wobbling like, you know, definitely slurring. I was drunk, yeah, very drunk.”
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The next thing she remembered, she said, was being awoken by Thompson standing over her and him taking her by the hand and leading her naked down the stairs to her bedroom. It was just after 3 a.m. and she assumed she must have passed out in the wrong bed.
“I remember immediately getting into the room, I was still standing, and he was on me,” she recalled. “He was just being aggressive, but not rough, but definitely trying to engage in something sexual. I can’t remember at what point he pulled out his penis. But I remember, I was like, ‘Oh no, no. Like, no, I don’t want to.'”
She tried to deter him by saying she didn’t have condoms and didn’t want to get pregnant. Still drunk and unsteady on her feet, she recalled sitting down on the edge of the bed. Thompson immediately tried to get her to perform oral sex, she claims, and she gave up fighting.
“I was scared because I just knew I couldn’t do anything. I was drunk. I didn’t know where I was. I had driven there, it’s the middle of the night. I felt trapped,” she recalled.
“I thought, ‘I could die’ because I don’t know this guy.”
Under tough cross examination, defence lawyer Leora Shemesh suggested she, and not Thompson, was the aggressor and she was the one who went to Thompson’s bedroom and said, “Hey, are you awake? Come and have a drink.”
Shemesh said the couple had drinks in the kitchen, began kissing and she led him downstairs to give him oral sex.
The complainant scoffed.
“Everything you’re saying absolutely did not happen,” she insisted.
The trial continues.
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