March 3 Ottawa Michel Gravel […]

When

1975-03-03

Description

March 3 Ottawa Michel Gravel, twenty-one, was arrested for running two male nude modelling agencies that were used as a front for a prostitution service involving teenage boys. Seventeen other men, all but one customers of the agencies, were arrested over the next three weeks and charged with contributing to juvenile delinquency, gross indecency, or buggery. None of the prostitutes was charged. The media sensationalized the "Ottawa Sex Scandal," calling the agencies a "white slavery ring" and a "homosexual vice ring." The names, ages, addresses, and occupations of those arrested were published or reported not only locally, but in newspapers across the country and on national radio. On March 18, one of the arrested men. Warren Zufelt, a thirty-four-year-old civil servant, committed suicide by jumping from an apartment building. On March 20, GO organized marches against police headquarters and the offices of the Ottawa Journal to protest police persecution of gays and biased reporting in the media, and to urge passing of a uniform age of consent law for all sexual acts. Soon afterwards, Ontario MPP Michael Cassidy (NDP -Ottawa Centre) wrote to Ontario's Minister of Justice John Clement. Troubled by Zufelt's death, Cassidy asked for an explanation of the double standard in charging gay clients of prostitutes with more serious offenses (such as gross indecency and buggery) than heterosexual clients (usually charged as being found-ins) in similar circumstances. Michel Gravel eventually pleaded guilty to charges of operating a common bawdy house and gross indecency; in September 1975 he was sentenced to two years less a day at the Guelph Correctional Centre, where he would be protected from prisoner abuse and receive psychiatric treatment, GO established the Warren Zufelt Memorial Defence Fund to help pay the court costs of the men who were charged. Of the sixteen other men charged, nine were fired, suspended, or changed jobs, and eight required psychiatric care because of the deluge of hate mail and calls they received. When their trials were completed, not one of the sixteen received either a jail term or fine; the charges were dismissed or the men were given absolute discharges or suspended sentences. In March and April 1976 there were calls in the Ontario Legislature from both opposition parties, led by MPPS Michael Cassidy (NDP -Ottawa-Centre) and Albert Roy (Lib.-Ottawa East), for a judicial inquiry into the handling of the case by Ottawa's morality squad. These demands were rejected by Ontario's Solicitor-General John MacBeth, Attorney-General Roy McMurtry, and, finally. Premier William Davis, who declared that "a public inquiry would serve no purpose." (see also March 18, April 9, May 13, June 12, and August 15.1975)

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