Man with long history of sex assaults stays behind bars
Posted August 22, 2012 5:24 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – A man with more than 80 convictions, including several sexual assaults, is still a dangerous offender.
A panel of three appeal court judges unanimously rejected Ryan Glenn Ziegler’s bid to have the designation dropped.
**CAUTION THIS STORY CONTAINS GRAPHIC CONTENT***
The panel noted seven of the convictions against Ziegler involved inherently sexual offences and eight others had a sexual component.
In 1998, he went into a women’s washroom in a church basement where he grabbed a nine-year-old girl and asked her if she wanted to kiss him. She ran off after he tried to grab her chest.
A year later, he sat beside a young woman on a bus and fondled her. When she tried to push him away, he exposed himself, started to masturbate and then urinated.
In 2004, he repeatedly exposed himself to a female corrections officer while he was on probation. He claimed to have cuts to his penis and asked her to put Polysporin on them.
In 2005, he touched a female corrections officer’s rear end while she was taking his fingerprints. Two days later, he touched a female police officer’s rear end while she was standing on the sidewalk.
“Self cleanliness and touching of female staff continue to be great challenges,” his case manager wrote while Ziegler was in custody in 2005. “This individual continues to challenge staff in terms of attitude and behaviour.”
Most recently, Ziegler was on his way to the hospital in Maple Ridge due to a suspected overdose. He cupped the paramedic’s breast while he was in the ambulance.
Ziegler’s lawyer argued the dangerous offender designation isn’t appropriate because the sentencing judge relied on claims against Ziegler that were never proven in court.
“I am satisfied the judge’s errors caused no substantial wrong or miscarriage of justice, as there is no reasonable possibility the outcome of the proceeding would have been any different,” Madam Justice Kathryn Neilson says in her ruling. “The evidence as to Mr. Ziegler’s inability to control his sexual impulses in the past, as well as the likelihood he will be unable to control them in future, remains overwhelming.”
Ziegler is serving an indefinite sentence.
