A former Montreal basketball coach was sentenced Wednesday to nine years in prison for sexually abusing a student throughout her high school years.<\/p>\n
In addition to the prison term, 35-year-old Robert Luu, found guilty in December, is prohibited from being in places frequented by minors for 10 years following his release. He will also be registered as a sex offender for 20 years.<\/p>\n
The Crown and defence presented a joint sentencing recommendation Wednesday for the former Saint-Laurent high school employee in connection with offences committed between 2014 and 2017.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is neither a lenient sentence nor a severe sentence, but a just sentence,\u201d Crown prosecutor J\u00e9r\u00f4me Laflamme argued.<\/p>\n
The trial heard Luu began exchanging text messages with the student as early as her sixth year of elementary school. By the end of the following year, he was in a relationship with the victim. In addition to shopping trips, restaurant outings and movies, their sexual relations were as frequent as those of any other couple, Laflamme said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt happened so many times that she is unable to tell us how many,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Painful memories <\/p>\n
The victim, now in her 20s, testified she was only able to end the relationship at age 15. She said that despite years of therapy, a single scent can revive memories from the period when she was under Luu\u2019s influence.<\/p>\n
She told the court she was determined to report her attacker to prevent others from experiencing similar abuse.<\/p>\n
Luu denied having an inappropriate relationship with the student and did not testify. According to a pre-sentence report, he considers himself the victim of a conspiracy, a view shared by his family.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe still maintains his innocence,\u201d defence lawyer Sharon Sandiford said after the hearing. \u201cBut on the question of sentence, I believe we submitted an appropriate and just sentence to the judge.\u201d<\/p>\n
She noted Luu had no prior criminal record.<\/p>\n
The court heard the case involved several aggravating factors, including the victim\u2019s age \u2014 she was 12 when she met Luu \u2014 her vulnerability, her family and socioeconomic situation, the length of the abuse and the fact it occurred in a school setting.<\/p>\n
Judge Patricia Compagnone ordered Luu\u2019s immediate incarceration before formally endorsing the joint recommendation.<\/p>\n
3 basketball coaches arrested<\/p>\n
Luu is one of three basketball coaches from Saint-Laurent high school arrested in February 2022.<\/p>\n
Daniel Lacasse was acquitted in 2025.<\/p>\n
Charles-Xavier Boislard was sentenced in January to four years in prison after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting a teenager, Shabeka Taylor, between 2010 and 2012.<\/p>\n
The case is also before civil court, where Taylor has filed a $3.2-million lawsuit against Boislard, Lacasse and another coach who was never criminally charged, Rastko Popovic.<\/p>\n
She is seeking compensation for ongoing physical, psychological and professional harm she alleges resulted from years of abuse.<\/p>\n
Taylor, now in her early 30s, successfully obtained an order lifting the publication ban on her identity. She is also suing the Centre de services scolaire Marguerite-Bourgeoys, alleging it failed to protect her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former Montreal basketball coach was sentenced Wednesday to nine years in prison for sexually abusing a student…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25375,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[12395,7056,12393,50,12392,12394],"class_list":{"0":"post-25374","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-montreal","8":"tag-basketball-coach","9":"tag-elementary-school","10":"tag-lenient-sentence","11":"tag-montreal","12":"tag-robert-luu","13":"tag-sexual-relations"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}