THUNDER BAY — Between 1985 and 1987, Donald Milani sexually assaulted four different women after breaking into residences in rural townships around Thunder Bay.
Thirty years later, in 2017, Milani was sentenced to 20 years in prison for multiple counts of sexual assault, break and enter, robbery, unlawful confinement and intent to commit an indictable offence while masked.
He was 69 years old at sentencing.
This month, the Ontario Court of Appeal issued a 2-1 decision dismissing Milani's request to shorten his prison term to 14 years.
The appeal was made partly on the basis of his advanced age and the amount of time that passed between the attacks and the trial.
OPP initially arrested Milani in 1987, but the charges were dismissed for lack of evidence at a preliminary hearing in 1989.
In 2007, an OPP investigative team reopened the case with the help of advances in DNA technology.
Three years later, police re-arrested Milani, but he was on bail for six years pending his trial before a jury.
During sentencing submissions in 2017, his lawyer said his time in prison should not exceed his life expectancy, and asked for a term of five to eight years.
Justice Helen Pierce, however, said numerous factors necessitated a severe sentence.
She described the assaults on the women as planned and premeditated, saying "Like a predator, he attacked when they were vulnerable."
One of the women was sexually assaulted on two separate occasions.
Of the five attacks, two were carried out when Milani had a gun, and one happened when he carried a knife.
Milani carefully planned his attacks, invaded his victims' homes, took steps to conceal his identity, and improved his chances of getting away by confining his victims or by cutting their phone lines.
The judge said ”He took control of their bodies for his own gratification, regardless of their protests. He humiliated them. He deprived them of their dignity, their autonomy and engendered long-lasting fear. He violated their sexual integrity with profound emotional consequences. He robbed them permanently of their sense of security.”
Justice Pierce rejected the defence submission that credit should be given for Milani's restrictive bail terms over six years, noting that he was not on house arrest and was able to work.
She also dismissed the argument that he did not intend to cause injury and did not intend violence, citing the fact that he knew the women were home alone, that he subjected them to humiliating sexual assaults, and that he carried weapons.
In the recent appeal, Milani's lawyer submitted that Pierce failed to give enough weight to the passage of time as a mitigating factor.
She argued that the case is unique in that while he was initially prosecuted and released in 1989, he remained subject to prosecution many years later. Therefore, he did not "lay low" or evade detection.
The two judges in the majority, however, noted Pierce's observation that Milani was able to enjoy the benefit of living a full life for 30 years after his offences, but his victims continued to suffer the long-term impact of his attacks.
They said the fact that he was able to spend the intervening years crime-free did not render the 20-year sentence disproportionate to the gravity of his crimes, which they said left the women "isolated, terrified and humiliated."
The appeal court judges added that Justice Pierce considered every argument made at sentencing, including the ones made in the appeal, and reviewed all the case law as well as all the principles of sentencing in detail.
"It was within the discretion of the sentencing judge to impose the sentence that she determined appropriate...She made no error of law or principle," they concluded.
In a dissenting opinion, the third judge on the panel said he believed the passage of time and Milani's advanced age were mitigating factors that had not been given proper weight.
He would have reduced his sentence to 14 years.
