DRUGS MADE ME DO IT -- ABROSIMO

Brian Edward Abrosimo was high on methamphetamine, which fuelled his
sex drive, when he scooped an 11-year-old girl off an isolated
Aldergrove road and drove her to Surrey where he sexually assaulted
her, a B.C. provincial court judge heard on Friday morning.

Judge Suzanne McGregor, who is presiding over the sentencing hearing
for Abrosimo, heard that Abrosimo blames this and his string of other
violent crimes on alcohol and drug use.

The Surrey man pleaded guilty last year to kidnapping and sexually
assaulting the young girl, and assaulting her 15-year-old friend with
a weapon.

The weapon was Abrosimo's van, which he used to knock the girls off
their bicycles on the afternoon of Aug. 12, 2004.

Last July, McGregor ordered a psychiatric assessment to help her
decide how long the violent sexual predator should spend in jail.

Crown prosecutor Chantal Goodmanson told reporters during the morning
break that she is not seeking a dangerous offender designation for
Abrosimo, which would allow the judge to impose an indefinite jail term.

The Crown is seeking a lengthy determinate sentence and long-term
offender designation which could add up to 10 years mandatory
supervision after the end of the jail sentence, Goodmanson said.

Forensic psychiatrist Dr. Elisabeth Zoffmann spent Friday on the
stand giving expert opinion on recividism, risk assessment, and the
treatment of sexual offenders and violent offenders.

The court heard that the two girls, Abrosimo's former wife, and a
prostitute whom he sexually assaulted six weeks before the
kidnapping, have all been psychologically damaged by Abrosimo's attacks.

Zoffmann concluded from her five-hour interview with Abrosimo last
autumn that he blames the use of alcohol and drugs on his crimes,
which include the unlawful confinement of the prostitute, theft and
impaired driving.

On the day of the Aldergrove kidnapping and sex attack, he was high
on methamphetamine, and, Zoffmann said, it is "fairly typical" to see
meth users experience an increase in their sex drive from using the
drug.

Abrosimo appears to be sorry for what he did, Zoffmann said.

"He is a person who appears to be very sorry for what he had done,
and ashamed," she said.

Sometimes remorse is short-lived or shallow, but the signs were
present in his face several times during her interview with him, she
added.

Many, if not all, of his prior convictions, which include theft for
the mugging of an elderly woman and possession of a firearm for a
purpose dangerous to the public peace, occurred when Abrosimo was
impaired by drugs or alcohol, the court heard.

Most people who resort to these do so for the increased energy,
heightened sex drive and quick-thinking that they give, Zoffmann said.

Reading from Zoffmann's assessment report, Goodmanson noted that
Abrosimo began drinking alcohol in his later teens, started smoking
marijuana at age 19, and at one point during the 1990s was combining
cocaine with methamphetamine.

A heavy-set man, Abrosimo, 42, sat with his shoulders hunched during
the procedings, glancing from time to time at the gallery where his
mother sat in the front row. He will be back in court Monday for the
continuation of the hearing, which is expected to wrap up on Tuesday
afternoon.