A defense lawyer says former Vancouver Canucks forward Jake Virtanen was drunk enough to urinate on himself the night he met a woman who later accused him of sexual assault.
During the woman’s cross-examination in British Columbia Supreme Court on Tuesday, lawyer Brock Martland showed a video of Virtanen vomiting into a bowl.
“Do you think he peed tonight in addition to throwing up?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, adding that Virtanen’s friends told her it appeared he had urinated in his pants.
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The 23-year-old woman, whose identity is covered by a publication ban, told the court Monday that Virtanen sexually assaulted her in a Vancouver hotel room in September 2017.
Virtanen, 25, was charged with one count of sexual assault in January following an investigation by Vancouver police.
The court heard Virtanen and the woman met at a bar during the 2017 Calgary stampede.
The woman testified Tuesday that she was not attracted to Virtanen the night they met because he was very drunk.
“I will suggest, though, that he’s an NHL player and that you’re approaching him — in fact, in this video, you’re approaching him — because you’re interested in him,” Martland said.
“No,” answered the woman.
“Did you know that NHL players make a significant amount of money?” Martland asked.
“I don’t know the income of NHL players,” she said.
“Honestly, I didn’t think Jake was very relevant in the NHL, so I didn’t think he was going to make that much money.”
Court heard Virtanen, then 21, and the woman, who was 18, exchanged numbers while in Calgary and kept in touch via text and Instagram direct messages when they both returned to British Columbia
The woman traveled to Vancouver in September 2017, texted Virtanen to meet up and went with him to his hotel room.
She testified that Virtanen sexually assaulted her in the hotel room. She said she repeatedly said no and told him she didn’t want to have sex with him.
Martland asked the woman why she went up to the hotel room even though she was uncomfortable and scared. She had several other options, the lawyer said, such as suggesting they go to a restaurant or take a walk on the beach.
“Basically, I wasn’t confident enough to say anything,” she said. “I was 18 years old and I think as an adult now I would have said something. But at that age and at that time I didn’t think to say anything. I didn’t know if I should.”
The woman testified that after the attack, she went and cried in the bathroom of the hotel room before getting back into bed with Virtanen and falling asleep.
“How come you end up back in the same bed as that rapist?” Martland asked her during cross-examination.
“I felt obligated. I felt like I had to,” she said.
Martland said the explanation “just doesn’t make sense.”
“I was very scared and I didn’t know what to do,” the woman replied. “I wasn’t thinking rationally.”
The woman did not go to the police in September 2017.
She first spoke about the incident in April 2021 when she posted her story on an Instagram page for survivors of sexual assault. She later shared her story with a journalist from Glacier Media, contacted the police and started a civil suit against Virtanen.
Virtanen was playing for the Canucks at the time of the alleged assault.
The team placed him on leave in May 2021 after the allegations were made public. His contract was bought out the following month.
Virtanen last played for Spartak Moscow in the Russia-based Kontinental Hockey League. He is not in custody.
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