Crown seeks up to 28 years for former Winnipeg school worker who sexually exploited teen students

A former Winnipeg school worker who admitted to sexually exploiting two 17-year-old girls, one of whom told police the man manipulated and eventually “broke” her, has pleaded guilty.

Matthew Mousseau, 38, entered pleas Wednesday morning to a list of offences committed from 2019 to 2024 that included luring, voyeurism, accessing child sex abuse materials, providing liquor to minors and exposing himself to a 13-year-old girl.

“Are you pleading guilty today because you are, in fact, guilty?” defence lawyer Jason Poettcker asked.

“Yes,” Mousseau replied, looking down at the floor as one of the now-young women he admitted to sexually exploiting watched from the courtroom gallery behind him.

Poettcker told court that prosecutors said the maximum sentence they would seek is 28 years, while he plans to ask for a lesser sentence.

Court heard that at the time of the offences, Mousseau was a support worker and Indigenous way of life school worker in the Seven Oaks School Division and the Winnipeg School Division.

Police announced in October 2024 that he had been charged with offences related to child sex abuse materials and voyeurism, as well as sexual assault and exploitation related to one of the survivors. Other charges involving additional survivors followed.

The additional survivors included the woman who came to court Wednesday. She gave a police statement after Mousseau’s arrest about exploitation that started in May 2019 and continued until August 2020, Crown attorney Alanna Littman said while reading an agreed statement of facts to court.

At the time, Mousseau was 32 and a support worker in an after-school program for high school students. He started working closely with the girl, who was 17, and began a sexually exploitative relationship that included intercourse at Mousseau’s home and in a parking lot, the agreed facts said.

Secret videos at mall, pool

Court heard the investigation into Mousseau started after he was arrested for voyeurism by Winnipeg police officers at CF Polo Park mall in May 2024. The officers, who were there as part of a retail theft initiative, found Mousseau carrying a tote bag with a small hole cut in it and an iPhone taped to the inside. The phone’s camera lens was secured where the hole was, the agreed facts said.

Mousseau agreed to a search of his phone, and officers found recent videos and images that showed him “walking closely to females” in the mall. While those images didn’t substantiate an offence, police also found several videos of female children “engaged in sexual activity,” which prompted them to seize the phone to investigate.

Mousseau was interviewed by child welfare workers in July 2024 about an allegation of a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl at the school where he worked. Mousseau confirmed the relationship. He also said the phone police seized had child sexual abuse material on it and that he had been “accessing such material one to three times per week for the past year,” the agreed statement of facts said.

“He described his age of attraction as five to 25 years of age” and said some of the material involved children as young as six years old.

Police got a warrant to search the phone, which confirmed Mousseau was in possession of child sexual abuse material. It also revealed he’d recorded children and adults in various stages of undress, including naked, in the family change room at Seven Oaks Pool in Winnipeg from April 2023 to May 2024.

A forensic analysis of Mousseau’s phone revealed a video of him exposing his penis to a 13-year-old girl he knew from outside of work. 

The girl was at Mousseau’s home in January 2024 when he surreptitiously recorded her with his phone, which also captured the girl picking up a bong from the kitchen table, the agreed facts said.

Girl sought guidance as she grieved

The girl who was exploited by Mousseau in 2024 told police she went to him for guidance while struggling that February with two deaths in her family.

She said she was spending more time with Mousseau at school, including after hours, and their relationship became sexual. Mousseau started texting her frequently, “commenting on her physical attributes and sharing plans with her for their future together,” the agreed facts said.

Mousseau drove to the girl’s home during spring break in March of that year and picked her up to take her to his home, where they smoked marijuana and had intercourse, the agreed facts said.

When the girl learned Mousseau would not be returning to work “due to an incident” in May 2024, she went to his home. Mousseau told her “their relationship could not continue as police were watching him” and blocked her number.

The girl messaged Mousseau through an app that September. He replied and later picked her up and drove her to his home, where they engaged in intercourse several times before he returned her to her home the next afternoon. 

She later told police Mousseau “manipulated her, used her spirituality and sacred parts of her culture, and ultimately that he ‘broke’ her,” the agreed facts said.

In September 2024, Mousseau found the Facebook account of a former student he’d previously worked closely with and messaged her, asking if she remembered him and telling her to “hit me up for smoke and rides, I got you if you want it. You are cool as f— in my books, always were.”

Mousseau messaged the girl in the days that followed about a previous night they’d spent together doing drugs at his house and said he wished he’d spent more time with her that night, “but I was paranoid tripping too thinking I was going to get into trouble….Worried about you all night lmfao.”

That girl later asked Mousseau to drive her and her friend — both 15 — to buy liquor. Mousseau got them a 26-ounce bottle of berry vodka with their money and a smaller bottle of Sour Puss liqueur “as a surprise for them with his own money,” then stopped at a cannabis store, where he bought one joint.

Mousseau, then 37, took them both back to his home, where they got “severely intoxicated” before he took them home, the agreed facts said.

Mousseau is expected to be sentenced later this year, after a number of post-conviction reports are completed.