Content warning: This story contains details of sexual assault.
A 58-year-old man awaits sentencing after being found guilty of climbing into his girlfriend's bedroom window, carrying her naked body to his truck, driving her to his Burnaby home and sexually assaulting her multiple times over the course of several hours – all while she was unconscious and in serious medical distress.
Constantin Vlachias is scheduled for sentencing on April 1 after being found guilty in December of sexually assaulting and failing to provide the necessaries of life to his then-girlfriend, D.L., on Sept. 20, 2021.
D.L.'s identity is protected by a publication ban.
Security video
After police arrived at Vlachias's house at about 4:45 a.m. on Sept. 20, 2021 and found D.L. lying in his bed "naked, unresponsive and gasping for air," Vlachias told officers he had been a "gentleman" in his treatment of her throughout the night.
But audio and video evidence revealed a very different story, according to B.C. Supreme Court Justice Andrew Mayer's reasons for judgment in Vlachias's case.
Security video from D.L.'s North Burnaby home showed Vlachias, in a bath robe and slippers, carrying D.L. out of her front door.
Video from Vlachias's Welsley Drive home, just off Canada Way, then showed him struggling to pull her still-unconscious, naked body out of his Dodge pickup truck, drop her onto the paved driveway and leave her for a time before dragging her into the house.
An interior hallway camera then captured him putting D.L.'s unconscious body into his bed.
Even though the hallway camera only partially captured Vlachias's acts in the bedroom, Mayer said the video and audio recordings taken in their entirety established Vlachias sexually assaulted D.L. multiple times as she lay unconscious.
"I am satisfied that the highest level of violation of D.L.'s sexual integrity was committed by Mr. Vlachias while she was in his bed," Mayer said.
Mayer also noted the videos captured Vlachias saying "Why you gotta cheat on me?" and "Shut the f*** up!" to D.L. multiple times as she lay moaning – and there was also enough evidence to conclude Vlachias had duct-taped D.L.'s mouth.
Mayer found Vlachias guilty of sexual assault and of failing to provide D.L. access to medical care in a way that endangered her life.
911 call
Medical help arrived in the end because a noise had wakened D.L.'s landlord, who got up in time to look down the stairs and see a man leave through the front door at about 1:18 a.m.
The landlord then called 911 after reviewing their security video, and police quickly identified Vlachias as a suspect.
When officers arrived at his house, they found D.L. unresponsive on his bed and immediately concluded she was in medical distress, Mayer said.
Paramedics believed D.L. was "very sick and in need of urgent medical care," with her eyes open and unblinking but not tracking objects and with "dangerously low" levels of blood oxygen and glucose, according to Mayer.
Her initial blood work at Royal Columbian Hospital was "grossly abnormal," Mayer said.
Cocaine and elevated levels of acetaminophen were found in her bloodstream.
She was later diagnosed with sepsis, an extreme infection response, and a "global hypoxic brain injury" brain damage caused by a lack of blood and oxygen to the brain.
To date, Mayer said D.L. remains "severely neurologically compromised, non-verbal and in need of long-term care facilities for support in all activities of daily living."
Vlachias told police he had texted and called D.L. before he went to her house at but she hadn't responded and he was worried.
He said he went to her house, looked into her bedroom window and saw her lying unconscious on her bed.
Police later found three tires and a recycling bin stacked under D.L.'s window.
Vlachias said he took off a "thin top" D.L. was wearing so he could carry her more easily and that he took her home because he was "concerned."
An officer later found a thin, spaghetti strap top torn in D.L.'s bedroom.
"I brought her here so she wasn't alone, and I put her up in my bed and went and slept downstairs," stated a transcript of Vlachias's interview with police.
'Complete disregard'
Vlachias told police he never felt the need to call an ambulance because it wasn't the first time he had seen D.L. like that, but he also told police "tonight was a different thing" and called whatever she had taken "scary."
Despite that and the fact D.L. had remained unresponsive from the time he carried her unresponsive body from her house to the time first responders arrived, Vlachias did not seek medical help.
Mayer noted Vlachias attributed D.L.'s condition to drug use but took "no steps to determine whether or not she had overdosed or was experiencing a reaction to drugs."
"Mr. Vlachias's complete disregard for D.L.'s well-being and her sexual integrity is apparent throughout the entirety of the events," Mayer said. "He uses D.L., who was in urgent need of aggressive medical attention, for his sexual purposes."
Follow Cornelia Naylor on X/Twitter @CorNaylor
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