Sentencing for a former Spruce Grove teacher and St. Albert hockey coach who made a sexual advance on a 16-year-old hockey player was put over for at least two weeks.
The sentencing of Robert John Paolinelli was expected Thursday in Stony Plain Provincial Court for the October 2011 sexual exploitation of a male hockey player who was billeting with him at the time of the offence.
The case was instead put over to Feb. 27 for a third sentencing date to be set. It is not known why the sentencing was postponed.
Sexual exploitation charges are laid against individuals who are in a position of trust but who violate that trust.
“I’m extremely ashamed at what I have done and I’m sorry for what I’ve done,” Paolinelli told the court at his sentencing hearing last summer. “I wish I had a time machine and I wish I would have not done this.”
Paolinelli pleaded guilty to the charge in December 2011, however, Crown prosecutor Douglas Taylor and lawyer Brian Vail disagreed on what exactly took place.
During the sentencing hearing in June, the victim alleged that Paolinelli touched his penis overtop his boxers, tried to kiss him and partially rolled on top of him.
Judge Hugh Fuller, however, sided with Paolinelli’s version of events in which Paolinelli made a sexual advance but quickly rebuffed.
Both Taylor and Vail agreed that Paolinelli, the victim and two other hockey players were playing Sociables – a card game that involves alcohol consumption – prior to the Oct. 4 offence at Paolinelli’s Stony Plain home.
At around midnight, two players went to bed while Paolinelli and the victim went to Paolinelli’s bedroom to discuss hockey.
The discussion turned sexual after about 30 minutes when Paolinelli offered to perform oral sex on the minor and offered to allow the boy to have intercourse with him.
The victim left the bedroom and told one of the other players what had happened. The billets living with Paolinelli were removed from his supervision days after the offence date.
Prior to the offence, Paolinelli taught at Spruce Grove’s St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic High School and coached a hockey team with the St. Albert Minor Hockey Association. He was suspended from the organization when charges came to light.
