Woman tells Calgary sex assault trial accused attacker offered her construction work

One of seven women who have accused a man of sexual assault says she was trying to leave the sex trade in April 2022 when he approached her on the street and offered her construction work.

The woman, who can't be identified because of a publication ban, said she knew the man who went by the nickname "Poncho" as an acquaintance and even thought he was a friend.

"He picked me up and had taken me for a ride, and we had discussed how I could help him with some of my talents as a trade person, because I had construction experience, framing experience," she testified in a Calgary courtroom on Friday, the first day of a trial for Richard Robert Mantha.

"We had talked about how I was trying to step back from my line of work that I had found myself in, as an addict and … a working girl, somebody who solicits (sex)."

Mantha, 59, faces 20 charges that include kidnapping, threats causing bodily harm, sexual assault with a weapon and administering a noxious substance. He has pleaded not guilty. 

He was denied bail last summer and has been in custody since he was arrested in April 2023.

Mantha, who has ties to Quebec, requested a French-language trial, which is relatively rare in Alberta's provincial courts but legally required.

The trial began with the woman, whose English testimony was interpreted into French for Mantha as needed.

She testified that she went with him to a rural property outside of Calgary.

"We talked about it almost all the way out there," she said of the prospect of doing construction work. "It was pretty exciting for me, because I felt like I had an opportunity to do something else than what I was originally doing."

When they got to the property, she said they went inside a Quonset building.

"I thought there's a lot of work here. He's going to be able to help with me not having to work as a prostitute anymore. He's going to give me the opportunity to fill my time with doing something useful."

She said he had also given her some cocaine, so she felt a little bit drowsy. 

"My emotions were all over the place."

The trailer in the quonset Richard Robert Mantha rented in Rocky View County.The woman went into a fifth-wheel trailer parked inside the Quonset to charge her phone when she got a call.

She said she was talking to her boyfriend, telling him about the construction work, when Mantha walked over.

"He tried to take my pants down," she said, her voice cracking. "I felt like I was back in the same position that I had to solicit with someone I thought was my friend. I didn't want to do that. I didn't know if he was going to hurt me. Everything started to get scary. 

"I tried to stop him from taking my pants down. I wasn't there for that."

The woman broke down into tears as she described seeing a knife, which she later described as a yellow box cutter, on the table and grabbing it to hide behind her back.

"It just blew up from there," she said. "I was being strangled. I had him on top of me, holding my mouth, holding my neck, holding my face down.

"I fought back. I got him off of me. All I can remember is fighting for my breath … and just screaming and screaming and screaming."

She said she doesn't know how she got away, but she got out of the trailer and the Quonset without her phone or her shoes, and with her pants still down.

The woman said she went through a farmer's field to a highway.

"I kept screaming the whole time and I just kept looking for traffic," she said. "And I finally saw traffic and I just kept going and I got there.

"I got to the highway and I collapsed."

The woman said she recalls hearing a woman's voice, but the next thing she remembered was waking up in a hospital with people treating her multiple injuries.

The trial, which is to hear from additional witnesses, is scheduled to run until Feb. 9.

Richard Robert Mantha, 59, is charged in connection with an incident where sex trade workers were allegedly drugged, kidnapped and assaulted. (Supplied)

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 19, 2024.