The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Former Flin Flon lawyer J. Michael Bomek has spoken out for the first time since his arrest and conviction on sexual assault charges. In an article published Saturday in The Globe and Mail, Bomek, who is out on parole, expressed doubt that he deserved to spend over a year behind bars for his actions. Now living in Prince Albert, he told the newspaper that his accusers ? men who were either past or present clients ? willingly engaged in sexual relations with him outside of his professional life. "It was my private life. What was wrong with it?" said Bomek, who was not shy about providing personal details. "Where does my professional life end and my personal life begin?" Bomek, now disbarred, entered the Court of Queen's Bench in Prince Albert last summer facing 45 charges, all but eight of which were stayed by the crown prosecutor. He plead guilty to those eight charges, six of which involved sexual assault in Pelican Narrows, Deschambault Lake, Sandy Bay, and The Pas area. The crown prosecutor reportedly argued that Bomek, 55, had abused a position of trust, power, or authority to gain consent from the complainants. Bomek also plead guilty to instructing an individual to make a false statement in trial, and to communicating or attempting to communicate with an individual "for the purpose of engaging in prostitution or of obtaining sexual services from that individual." His initial prison sentence of three-and-a-half years was reduced to two years less a day after the court took into account the nearly ten months he had already been behind bars up to that point. Bomek was arrested in Pelican Narrows in September 2002 and remained in custody until his release on parole earlier this year. In the Globe interview, he said he felt the police made him a target because he stood up for aboriginals. "I complained about conditions in the cells in Pelican Narrows," said Bomek, who graduated from the University of Manitoba in 1985 before setting up practices in Flin Flon and Snow Lake. The Globe article was authored by Philip Slayton, a Toronto lawyer writing a book about those in his profession who end up on the wrong side of the law, including Bomek.
