A high-risk offender arrested Saturday after allegedly holding two teen girls captive and sexually assaulting them has a history of violence targeting vulnerable women, court records show.
Kelly Trent Schoffer’s extensive criminal history includes multiple convictions for robbery, assault, sexual assault and “all offences under the sun,” a prosecutor told a judge who sentenced Schoffer in March 2023 to the equivalent of 18 months in custody for breaching terms of a five-year long-term supervision order.
“Victims of your violent offences have often been vulnerable women,” said a 2018 National Parole Board decision referenced at the sentencing hearing. “Your offending has been very consistent and violent. Your (case worker) reports you have demonstrated a complete disregard for the law and the well-being of others, which has been undeterred by previous terms of incarceration.”
File Supplied
Kelly Trent Schoffer in a photo released by police in 2017.
Police allege Schoffer lured the two teen victims to an Exchange District hotel last Saturday morning and provided them with drugs and alcohol before confining and sexually and physically assaulting them.
Schoffer remains in custody, charged with two counts each of sexual assault, forcible confinement and failing to comply with a probation order, and single counts of assault, obtaining sexual services for consideration and possession of cocaine.
In recent years, Schoffer has been in and out of custody after repeatedly violating terms of his long-term supervision order, first put in place in 2011 following a conviction for robbing a 79-year-old Moose Jaw woman in her home.
At the March 2023 hearing, Schoffer pleaded guilty to not reporting a new relationship with a woman he had met through an online dating site and possessing alcohol, both violations of his supervision order.
Court heard Schoffer had contacted the woman through the Plenty of Fish dating app and were meeting for the first time when police saw him pick the woman up at a Pembina Highway address, Oct. 4, 2022. Police followed Schoffer to a nearby beer vendor where he was seen buying three king cans of beer.
That incident came just eight months after Schoffer was sentenced to the equivalent of 18 months custody for violating his supervision order.
Court heard Schoffer had just been released from prison in February 2021 and was being monitored with an ankle bracelet when he rented a car, a violation of his supervision order, and picked up a woman he met on Plenty of Fish. The woman later told police Schoffer drove to Headingley, pointing to his ankle bracelet and saying he “wanted to see how far I can go before they notice.”
Schoffer was “struggling” with the recent death of his father and his mother’s cancer diagnosis when he “reached out for female companionship” on Plenty of Fish, he told provincial court Judge Robert Heinrichs at his March 2023 sentencing.
“I actually relate to women, when it’s personal stuff,” he said. “I can talk about it better than I can talk to men.
“I’m not going to say I’m sorry because that’s probably a broken record,” he said. “All I can say is I will do my best.”
Heinrichs rejected as too harsh a recommendation by then-Crown attorney Mark Kantor that Schoffer be sentenced to two years in prison.
“I am a firm believer that people can change,” Heinrichs told Schoffer. “I’m not giving up hope that things can be better for you in the future.”
dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca
Dean Pritchard
Courts reporter
Dean Pritchard is courts reporter for the Free Press. He has covered the justice system since 1999, working for the Brandon Sun and Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in 2019. Read more about Dean.
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