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Former player Tyler Steenbergen testifies at hockey sexual assault trial
Content warning: This story includes allegations of sexual assault. LONDON, Ont. — Former 2018 Canadian world junior player Tyler Steenbergen Wednesday told the court in the trial of five former NHLers accused of sexual assault that he went to Michael McLeod’s hotel room because he heard there was food there. Steenbergen said that after one of the players he was with received a text saying there was food in Room 209 of the Delta Armouries hotel, he entered the room with teammates Jake Bean and Dillon Dube. He said once inside the room he saw Sam Steele, Carter Hart, Maxim Comtois, Drake Batherson, Brett Howden, Alex Formenton and McLeod. Entering the room and sitting at a desk, he heard someone say, “Guys, there’s a naked girl in the bathroom.” “I was kind of shocked,” said Steenbergen, who was testifying via Zoom from Sylvan Lake, Alta., where he is working for his dad’s business building starter homes. The woman is known as “E.M.” in court documents because of a publication ban on her name. Responding to questions from Crown lawyer Heather Donkers, Steenbergen, 27, said the woman came out of the washroom and asked if anyone was going to have sex with her. The sessions before Steenbergen were broken up by defence objections to re-examination questions by assistant Crown attorney Meaghan Cunningham and by technical delays. The jury was excused five times for those reasons. Some of Cunningham’s questions were designed to clarify points E.M. made during her statements given to London police on June 22, 2018, three days after the alleged incident on June 19, and Aug. 31, 2018. E.M. also said she did not ask London police to re-open the investigation after it had been closed in February 2019. In earlier cross-examination by defence lawyer Megan Savard of her Aug. 31, 2018, statement to police, E.M. had said, “it’s hard when you have a whole group of them, you want to be, like, ‘OK, I’m cool with this.’” She wanted to further explain her answer but Savard directed her to answer the question that had been asked. During re-examination, Cunningham asked her what E.M. meant by being “cool with this.” “I’m trying to cope with it,” E.M. said from elsewhere in the courthouse via CCTV. “I feel like I didn’t have another choice but to go along with it.” E.M. said she had been shown cellphone “consent” videos of herself for the first time during that interview with police, and she found them “unsettling.” “I didn’t know it was taken, so it was hard to wrap my head around what I was seeing,” she said. She had said earlier that the first time she had seen some of the videos shot over the night at the bar where she met the players, Jack’s, was during the trial. E.M. also said she participated in the Hockey Canada investigation led by Henein Hutchison Robitaille LLC’s Danielle Robitaille in 2022 and not in 2018 because in 2018, her priority was the police investigation. She chose to take part in the Hockey Canada 2022 investigation because “I felt like it was one more thing to do to put this behind me. The police investigation had already happened.” E.M. first took the stand on May 2, sitting for nine days of cross-examination from defence lawyers and questioning by the Crown. McLeod has been charged with two counts of sexual assault, including one relating to aiding in the offence. Dube, Cal Foote, Formenton and Hart have each been charged with one count of sexual assault. All have pleaded not guilty to their charges. The Ontario Superior Court of Justice trial is expected to continue Thursday with further testimony and cross-examination of Steenbergen. Editor’s note If you or someone you know is in need of support, those in Canada can find province-specific centres, crisis lines and services here. For readers in the United States, a list of resources and references for survivors and their loved ones can be found here.
Content warning: This story includes allegations of sexual assault.
LONDON, Ont. — Former 2018 Canadian world junior player Tyler Steenbergen Wednesday told the court in the trial of five former NHLers accused of sexual assault that he went to Michael McLeod’s hotel room because he heard there was food there.
Steenbergen said that after one of the players he was with received a text saying there was food in Room 209 of the Delta Armouries hotel, he entered the room with teammates Jake Bean and Dillon Dube. He said once inside the room he saw Sam Steele, Carter Hart, Maxim Comtois, Drake Batherson, Brett Howden, Alex Formenton and McLeod.
Entering the room and sitting at a desk, he heard someone say, “Guys, there’s a naked girl in the bathroom.”
“I was kind of shocked,” said Steenbergen, who was testifying via Zoom from Sylvan Lake, Alta., where he is working for his dad’s business building starter homes.
The woman is known as “E.M.” in court documents because of a publication ban on her name.
Responding to questions from Crown lawyer Heather Donkers, Steenbergen, 27, said the woman came out of the washroom and asked if anyone was going to have sex with her.
The sessions before Steenbergen were broken up by defence objections to re-examination questions by assistant Crown attorney Meaghan Cunningham and by technical delays. The jury was excused five times for those reasons.
Some of Cunningham’s questions were designed to clarify points E.M. made during her statements given to London police on June 22, 2018, three days after the alleged incident on June 19, and Aug. 31, 2018. E.M. also said she did not ask London police to re-open the investigation after it had been closed in February 2019.
In earlier cross-examination by defence lawyer Megan Savard of her Aug. 31, 2018, statement to police, E.M. had said, “it’s hard when you have a whole group of them, you want to be, like, ‘OK, I’m cool with this.’” She wanted to further explain her answer but Savard directed her to answer the question that had been asked.
During re-examination, Cunningham asked her what E.M. meant by being “cool with this.”
“I’m trying to cope with it,” E.M. said from elsewhere in the courthouse via CCTV. “I feel like I didn’t have another choice but to go along with it.”
E.M. said she had been shown cellphone “consent” videos of herself for the first time during that interview with police, and she found them “unsettling.”
“I didn’t know it was taken, so it was hard to wrap my head around what I was seeing,” she said. She had said earlier that the first time she had seen some of the videos shot over the night at the bar where she met the players, Jack’s, was during the trial.
E.M. also said she participated in the Hockey Canada investigation led by Henein Hutchison Robitaille LLC’s Danielle Robitaille in 2022 and not in 2018 because in 2018, her priority was the police investigation. She chose to take part in the Hockey Canada 2022 investigation because “I felt like it was one more thing to do to put this behind me. The police investigation had already happened.”
E.M. first took the stand on May 2, sitting for nine days of cross-examination from defence lawyers and questioning by the Crown.
McLeod has been charged with two counts of sexual assault, including one relating to aiding in the offence. Dube, Cal Foote, Formenton and Hart have each been charged with one count of sexual assault. All have pleaded not guilty to their charges.
The Ontario Superior Court of Justice trial is expected to continue Thursday with further testimony and cross-examination of Steenbergen.
