'I near lost everything': Sask. man trying to pick up pieces after DNA clears him of sexual assault
Dan Zakreski | CBC News | Posted: May 2, 2018 11:00 AM | Last Updated: May 2, 2018
Devin Bileski was charged in December and cleared in March
Devin Bileski isn't sure people in Preeceville, Sask., will ever look at him the same, even though his name has been cleared.
On Dec.18, RCMP charged the 25-year-old with aggravated sexual assault. A woman had identified Bileski as the masked intruder who attacked her at gunpoint in her own home earlier that same night.
"The victim said she was 98 per cent sure of who it was," prosecutor Daryl Bode said at Bileski's bail hearing in Yorkton, according to court transcripts.
"She knew the voice, she knew the build of the body and she knew the intimate details of his private area."
Investigators collected DNA samples from Bileski, from the victim and her home in the small, east-central Saskatchewan town.
"The Crown submits [the DNA] will tie him 100 per cent to being at that location," Bode said at the time.
DNA ruled out Bileski
The DNA tests on all the samples came back to investigators on March 28. The results were negative. The samples collected from the victim's home did not come from Devin Bileski.
Within hours, all seven charges were stayed and Bileski was allowed to return to Preeceville.
Part of his bail release conditions had been that he was not allowed in the town of 1,125 about 300 km east of Saskatoon.
I nearly lost the business, all the payments, the house. I near lost everything because of this. - Devin Bileski
"It was terrible, absolutely terrible. People look at me now … people will always look at me different now," Bileski said in an interview. "That'll never change."
Bileski faced 8 to 10 years in prison
The facts of the sexual assault are disturbing.
Someone broke into the victim's home on Dec. 18 at 3:30 a.m. CST, armed with a gun and wearing a mask and latex gloves.
The noise of dogs barking woke the woman and a small child in the home. The child was unharmed in the assault.
The attacker sexually assaulted the young woman multiple times, at one point taping her eyes closed with duct tape.
According to facts presented at the bail hearing, the woman called RCMP immediately after the assault and identified Bileski by name.
They arrived at his home at 8 a.m. CST, and within hours arrested and charged him.
Bileski was taken from Preeceville to Yorkton, about 100 km south. After five days in a holding cell, he had a bail hearing and was denied release. From there Bileski was moved to the correctional centre in Regina.
A second lawyer applied for a bail review and, on Jan. 29, that was held in Court of Queen's Bench. This time he was released.
Defence lawyer Ron Piche represented Bileski at that hearing and, by his own account, he knew that Bileski faced an uphill fight.
"We also had a complainant who indicates that on a percentage, she was 98 per cent certain that he was the individual. There was enough, I think, in those circumstances that any jury or judge would have probably been convinced that '98 per cent is good enough for me' type of thing," he said.
"That's the scary thing, when you look at any trial, a case of aggravated sexual assault with a weapon; his jeopardy was in the area of eight to 10 years in prison."
RCMP spokesperson Natalie Gray said, "We are still actively investigating the break, enter and sexual assault."
Gray would not comment on whether RCMP have any new suspects.
Ordeal cost Bileski almost $100K
More than a month after his release, Bileski says he's still trying to pick up the pieces.
He estimates that he lost close to $100,000 since December to lawyers, lost wages and repairs to broken equipment. He works in the logging industry and says that an engine blew on one of his machines while an inexperienced operator was filling in for him.
"Once I got arrested, I near lost everything," he said.
"I near lost the business, all my payments, the house. I near lost everything because of this."