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This story includes details that some readers might find disturbing.
A Dollard-des-Ormeaux resident who coached baseball in the West Island was found guilty Friday of sexually abusing a 13-year-old boy he was hired to train.
Robert Litvack, 44, kept his hands folded in front of him as Quebec Court Judge Josée Bélanger asked him to approach the bench before she found him guilty of sexual assault and sexual interference.
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Litvack was hired by the boy’s father as a personal trainer to help him prepare for baseball. To prepare for the training sessions, Litvack would massage the boy’s legs but also asked the boy to lower his underwear and massaged his exposed buttocks.
In another incident that left the boy disturbed, Litvack asked the boy if he wanted to steer his car and then invited him to sit on his lap. He also tickled the boy’s inner thigh during the car ride.
Bélanger said she couldn’t look past how Litvack never told the boy’s parents about the massages.
“The court does not believe the accused on this point,” the judge said of Litvack’s attempts to explain why he didn’t tell the parents that he was massaging their son.
When he testified, Litvack conceded that he massaged the 13-year-old boy’s legs and buttocks. He said he did so to relieve soreness and that there was no sexual intent.
There was “a sexual connotation and he violated (the boy’s) sexual integrity,” the judge said. “The acts committed were intrusive.
“He could not massage (the boy) without the parent’s permission.”
A standard publication ban has been placed on the case to protect the boy’s identity.
Litvack was once the president of a Lac St-Louis baseball association and an assistant baseball coach at John Abbott College. The judge described him as “an experienced coach and an important person in the baseball world.”
The trial enters the sentencing stage later this month.
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