An Indigenous offender who got a “huge break” when a judge gave him house arrest for sexually assaulting a woman who was celebrating her engagement to another man just got another one for violating the conditions of his sentence.

Nelson Lesage was sentenced to house arrest in July 2024 for sexually assaulting a woman while she was asleep with her fiancé at Lesage’s home in Fort Providence, N.W.T.

Recommended Videos

“He was aware, or should have been, that not being sentenced to actual incarceration was a huge break,” Northwest Territories Supreme Court Justice Louise Charbonneau wrote in a recent decision out of Yellowknife.

“Even taking into account his guilty plea, his tragic circumstances and applying the principles that govern the sentencing of Indigenous offenders, the sentence he

See Full Page