Image Credit: Vernon Matters

By Pete McIntyre / Vernon Matters

Curtis Sagmoen

Sagmoen accused of running woman down on ATV

Feb 10, 2020 | 2:32 PM

VERNON, B.C. — A sex trade worker says a man on a quad ran into her at full speed, causing her to fall over and break her tailbone.

The woman, who can not be identified due to a publication ban, testified at the trial of Curtis Sagmoen in Vernon Supreme Court.

The 39-year-old Shuswap man is charged with one count of assault and one of assault causing bodily harm.

The woman, who told the court she works as an escort in the Okanagan recalled the event she said happened in August 2017. She received a text message through a website used by sex trade workers inviting her to Salmon River Road for a “couple of hours.”

“I had a weird feeling about it and I put it off for a little. [I] went out during the daytime so I would be a little more comfortable just because it was out of town and I was by myself,” she said.

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The woman said she visited Salmon River Road before but didn’t realize it was the same address where she had been “stood up before.”

She said she left her home on Aug. 10 and got to the address early in the afternoon.

When she first saw Sagmoen, she said he went whipping by on a quad, and texted her he was who she came to see. The woman said the text from Sagmoen told her he was going down to the creek to cool off and advised her to grab a bottle from the trunk in his truck and to follow him down there.

“He tried to ask for my services on the side of the creek which I was not into, and he had yet to pay me,” the woman said.

She asked where his house was, and they ended up going up a dirt road hill where her car became stuck in some sand.

She said Sagmoen offered to help her get it out, but later asked her to get on his quad.

“I didn’t find him intimidating at all, so I said, ‘okay,’” the woman said.

Eventually the escort grew frustrated and said she had “a bad feeling about it.” She estimated she was at the site for roughly two hours, wasn’t paid yet, and wasn’t at the customer’s house, she said.

The woman testified she decided to walk back down the dirt road to her car to leave when she heard the quad start up and “heard it going really fast.”

“I thought he was just going to be a jerk and kick up some dust and I had moved to the edge to let him get by. Instead of going by me he hit me square from behind trying to hit me off the mountain. He hit me so hard I flipped over and luckily I didn’t lose consciousness,” she said.

She said she was left with a bump the size of an orange along with bruises, road rash and a broken tailbone after landing face down.

As she was trying to get back to her car to leave, she said Sagmoen told her “I didn’t mean to do that.”

Under cross examination, Sagmoen’s lawyer Lisa Jean Helps questioned the sex worker about the dangers of her profession, having her admit it carries a higher risk. The woman said she tries to be careful if she doesn’t know the customer.

“Nobody else has ever done this to me. I’ve never had a reason to be afraid of anybody,” the witness said.

In an unrelated incident, Sagmoen was recently handed a sentence of two years less a day in December. In that trial he was found guilty of three charges tied to a gun-related incident with a sex trade worker near Falkland in 2017.

Juan O’Quinn is Crown counsel for the case before Justice Gary Weatherill.