It took six years but Giovanni D'Amico has finally been found guilty in a court of law for attacks and sexual assaults on street sex workers after first being arrested over six years ago. He faces 14 years in prison.
The trial took a long time, possibly because the defence attorneys hoped that the witnesses might forget, or die or move away or something, if the case dragged on.
Someone with knowledge of the case told me that one of the sex workers did indeed pass away in the years since, which isn't that shocking considering that the crimes were committed between 2002 and 2007.
D'Amico was an upbeat guy with a go-getter attitude who knew a lot of people.
He did not appear to have any alcohol, drug, or psychological issues that anybody ever noticed.
I was acquainted with him through a third party, although I probably bumped into him only a couple of times after 2000.
He would often talk exuberantly about his great apartment somewhere near say Sherbrooke and Grand (I never visited) where I believe he he said he lived with his sister.
I never heard Giovanni D'Amico mention prostitution, which he apparently boasted elsewhere of having some expertise in.
Being interested in prostitution was a bizarre hobby for a few men at that time.
I once wrote a long profile on a tall, affable Verdun guy whose main hobby lay in roaming city streets and mingling extensively with street prostitutes and then telling others of his low-cost conquests.
Street prostitution was a going concern in Montreal up until relatively recently, as sex workers would converge on corners such as Notre Dame and St. Remi, and Charlevoix and Wellington and Verdun and Church (much to my frustration as I owned property there).
Some argue that street hookers are still around but have simply been displaced. Police say otherwise, however. Seems to be an uncelebrated urban triumph that this tawdry and dangerous practice has been radically diminished.
Someone with knowledge of the case told me that one of the sex workers did indeed pass away in the years since, which isn't that shocking considering that the crimes were committed between 2002 and 2007.
D'Amico was an upbeat guy with a go-getter attitude who knew a lot of people.
He did not appear to have any alcohol, drug, or psychological issues that anybody ever noticed.
I was acquainted with him through a third party, although I probably bumped into him only a couple of times after 2000.
He would often talk exuberantly about his great apartment somewhere near say Sherbrooke and Grand (I never visited) where I believe he he said he lived with his sister.
I never heard Giovanni D'Amico mention prostitution, which he apparently boasted elsewhere of having some expertise in.
Being interested in prostitution was a bizarre hobby for a few men at that time.
I once wrote a long profile on a tall, affable Verdun guy whose main hobby lay in roaming city streets and mingling extensively with street prostitutes and then telling others of his low-cost conquests.
Street prostitution was a going concern in Montreal up until relatively recently, as sex workers would converge on corners such as Notre Dame and St. Remi, and Charlevoix and Wellington and Verdun and Church (much to my frustration as I owned property there).
Some argue that street hookers are still around but have simply been displaced. Police say otherwise, however. Seems to be an uncelebrated urban triumph that this tawdry and dangerous practice has been radically diminished.
From what I've read during archive research, apparently Montreal's original downtown red light district was bounded by Bleury on the west, St. Denis on the east, Sherbrooke on the north, and St. Antoine on the south.
ReplyDeleteAs the decades went by, however, urban renewal projects often razed blocks of aging housing on streets where the illicit business used to occur, not to mention various health and police crackdowns, corruption scandals and so on--events which over time shrank the area down to within St. Laurent on the west, St. Denis on the east, Sherbrooke on the north, and Rene Levesque on the south with some intervening and peripheral streets included.
Not sure if the corner of Blvd. St. Laurent and Ste. Catherine Street remains our red light "ground zero" as it once was, however.
Street prostitution in the west end seems to be a thing of the past. However, if you drive down St. Catherine between Prefontaine and Pie IX you're sure to see a handful of street workers on any given night...
ReplyDeleteVIA SETH
ReplyDeleteI don't know how to create an OpenID account.
Please put the following in your comment area for the Gio D'Amico story:
With all your crime stories, and that link to the naked lady in the right column, you should call your site Allo Police.
Thanks, Seth
Two genes linked with violent crime:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29760212