Oakley Blackstar, 63, was sentenced Tuesday afternoon at Saskatoon Provincial Court. (CKOM staff)

By Nigel Maxwell

Crime

Former Sask. teacher receives 20 month jail sentence, following sexual relationship with teenage girl

Apr 7, 2021 | 2:34 PM

Editor’s note: the following story contains some graphic details. The identity of the victim is protected under a publication ban.

A 63-year-old man who exchanged intimate images with a 16-year-old girl and lured her to a hotel room in Saskatoon to have sex has received a 20-month jail sentence.

Oakley Blackstar, a former band councillor and a longtime educator at the Piapot First Nation in southern Saskatchewan, appeared at Saskatoon Provincial Court Tuesday for the sentencing hearing. He entered a guilty plea to luring a child to facilitate an offence. While the legal age of consent to sexual activity is 16, Blackstar admitted it was wrong to send sexual photos to someone under the age of 18.

According to the statement of facts read in court, the two began conversing through social media in June 2020. The girl had not been a student of Blackstar’s but had mutual friends on Facebook. Crown Prosecutor Ling Le explained Blackstar was forthright with the girl, identifying himself as a teacher and expressed interest in meeting with her to have sex. He also indicated he was willing to travel to meet her, and could either take her camping or to a hotel room.

“Mr. Blackstar tells the victim to keep quiet until she’s 18. He says they will have to plan secret meetings until she turns 18 if they want to have sex,” Le said.

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“Mr. Blackstar truly believed that a relationship had started” _{– Lawyer Dwayne Stonechild}

On June 18, 2020, the two arranged for a meet-up, and went to a hotel room in Saskatoon to have sex. The girl later confided with police she felt “overwhelmed” when Blackstar came up behind her and started to kiss her, and then described feelings of intense pain and paralysis during sexual intercourse as it was her first time.

“She said she did not say stop or no during sex but that she kept saying ouch and that it was hurting,” Le said.

After the incident Blackstar took the girl to a location in Martensville, and in the days following, continued to text her.

“He told her that he loved her and wanted to marry her,” Le said.

The girl did not agree to meet with Blackstar again, and eventually told him she had spoken with police. Blackstar in turn told her they should delete all their messages to protect themselves, and because of this Le indicated there was a lack of forensic material in the case.

Blackstar was arrested by police in North Battleford on Sept. 24. Le indicated he told police he knew the girl and how old she was, and also admitted there would be pictures in his phone.

“He said he felt bad about what happened. He said he didn’t mean to hurt her,” Le said. “He suggested that he believed the sexual encounter was consensual”

Prior to this conviction, Blackstar had only one conviction related to impaired driving in the late 1990’s. There was no prior history related to child luring.

While noting that Blackstar took responsibility for his actions, and saved the girl further trauma by avoiding a trial, Le argued the extreme age gap between the accused and the victim was a serious aggravating factor.

Defence arguments

Defence lawyer Dwayne Stonechild confirmed his client was a band councillor at Piapot in the 1980’s and in addition to being a Cree teacher, was also at one time the band’s director of education. At the time of his arrest last year, Blackstar was still listed on the band’s website as an employee. While noting Blackstar agreed to the statement of facts presented by the Crown, Stonechild added the actual conversation started in February 2020, and suggested there was more to the story.

“Mr Blackstar truly believed that a relationship had started,” Stonechild explained.

“She was the one that started to initiate the nude pictures. He never asked for those.”

When given the opportunity to speak in court, Blackstar expressed remorse for his actions.

Judge’s remarks

Prior to agreeing to the joint submission, Judge Marilyn Gray told Blackstar he should have known better.

“One has to think as an educator, as someone who has worked with young people your own whole life, that you would understand how damaging it could be for someone so young to be in a relationship with someone who is more than three times their age,” she said.

Once he has served his sentence, Blackstar will be on probation for three years with a number of conditions including no contact with the victim.

–

nigel.maxwell@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @nigelmaxwell