Man used Hamilton property to lure & assault realtor

A Mississauga man who used his status in real estate to lure and sexually assault a prospective homebuyer in Hamilton has been spared jail time.

Mordecai Berlad was sentenced Nov. 15 to six months house arrest and two years probation after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting the woman who visited his Pearl Street home for an arranged tour in June 2020.

Originally charged with four counts of sexual assault involving multiple victims and one count of forcible confinement, the 61-year-old instead pleaded guilty to the single count of sexual assault after striking a deal with the Crown that would see a week-long trial avoided .

“You have pleaded guilty and saved considerable trial time, but I have taken into account the other three counts of discreet sexual assaults,” Justice Stephen Brown said at the hearing.

Brown said the most aggravating factor in his sentence — which was jointly submitted by Crown and defense attorneys — was the consistent tactics Berlad used to lure women into situations where he could take advantage of them.

The five charges Berlad was facing spanned five years, according to an agreed statement of facts, with four happenings in Hamilton and one in Toronto.

All of the Hamilton attacks followed a similar pattern. Berlad used properties he owned on Pearl Street to attract women looking to rent, buy or, in one case, model for ads for his construction company, court heard.

The court heard the sexual assault charge which Berlad pleaded guilty to being involved in a local real estate agent, who’d been told by a colleague that Berlad was selling investment properties in Hamilton.

The woman met with Berlad at his Pearl Street home on June 29, 2020. After a quick tour, Berlad began making sexually inappropriate remarks toward her and commenting on her poor posture. He also told her he was a “master in jujitsu” and trained in yoga before offering to help her with stretching exercises and massaging her back, shoulders and neck.

Court heard Berlad eventually led the woman to an upstairs bedroom, where he directed her to lay down on a bed. Intimidated by his athletic shape, he was obliged. Berlad then straddled her from behind, prodding and touching her back, buttocks and breasts, the court heard.

“At one point, he pulled her arm to his groin, pinning her arm between his legs,” according to the agreed statement of facts.

After an unsuccessful attempt to lift her shirt, Berlad got off the woman. He continued to make sexually inappropriate comments toward her — like how he loved her a– and couldn’t believe she didn’t let him touch her breasts — before the woman left, court heard.

Berlad was arrested that day after the woman reported the incident to the police.

Brown said all of the offenses had a common thread — namely in that Berlad “used his position of trust and respect to get close to women before being sexually inappropriate” — his strict, conditional sentence should also serve as a warning to him.

“Going forward, if anything like this happens, you certainly won’t be in a position where the Crown even suggests a conditional sentence is appropriate,” he told Berlad.

Berlad — who Brown said “appears to be on the road” to rehabilitation and accepts his conduct was “totally inappropriate” — declined to address the court.

In interviews with The Spectator after the hearing, two victims who can’t be named under a publication ban expressed disappointment with the sentence, saying it wasn’t enough to determine what they believed was repeated conduct.

“To be honest, I have serious concerns that this will happen again,” said one victim, a local real estate agent who alleges she was sexually assaulted by Berlad in June 2020. “All of these attacks were tactical set-ups and traps, and I’m worried he thinks he can get away with it.”

The victim said she was “at the height” of her real estate career when a colleague referred her to Berlad, who she said was selling three homes in a prime market.

“It was like the best news you could get in your career,” she said. “And he knew that and used that to trap me. I withdrew from my business and life after this.”

Another victim — who the court heard Berlad had allegedly sexually assaulted in November 2018 as he renovated his Toronto home — said the sentence left her “appalled.”

“It’s a slap in the face,” she added. “The message it’s giving to victims is don’t even bother going to the police.”

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