The New York City skyline.THE CANADIAN PRESS/The Canadian Press
A British Columbia man linked to a string of sexual attacks in both Canada and the United States was sentenced on Monday to a quarter-century in a New York prison.
Greg Poirier, 39, was convicted last month for a 2008 incident in which he followed a woman into her East Village, Manhattan, apartment building, pushed her into her home and sexually assaulted her.
He is already serving a five-year sentence for a string of similar sexual assaults in which he attacked women at their Manhattan homes.
The woman in the 2008 incident had reportedly bitten Mr. Poirier, leaving behind traces of his DNA in her apartment. It was then matched to a 2009 assault.
According to court records, Mr. Poirier was also charged with sexual assault, break and enter with intent to commit offence and flight from a police officer stemming from a November, 2007, incident in Vernon, B.C. In that case, a woman in the East Hill area awoke to find Mr. Poirier in her bedroom, police said at the time. A car linked to Mr. Poirier was found in Vancouver.
On Monday, Mr. Poirier told a Manhattan judge that the sentence, the maximum for his crime, didn't matter to him because he plans to appeal. He pointed to his heritage and beliefs as a native Canadian and said he felt mistreated by the U.S. justice system.
Mr. Poirier, who is 6-foot-2 and about 250 pounds, has also gone by the aliases Greg Simon Dennis-Poirier and "Chauchee," according to court records.
Defence lawyer Hershel Katz said Mr. Poirier was working as a truck driver in New York.
Andrea Woo