Repeat offender Darrin Phillip Rouse has been convicted of another sex crime.
Rouse, 53, of North Kentville, was convicted Friday in Yarmouth Supreme Court of sexual assault and drug trafficking involving a teenager under the age of 18. He was in his 40s at the time.
The victim, who is now in her 20s, testified at a trial earlier this year that she was a teenager when Darrin Phillip Rouse got her hooked on Dilaudid, which he often exchanged for sexual favours.
The trial was held in Kings County, where the woman resided, but the decision was handed down in Yarmouth because of court scheduling.
The woman said she met Rouse more than a decade ago when she was under the age of 16, after he started hanging out with her mother.
She said Rouse would visit her mother and family almost daily from his home, and she at times went there when he invited her.
The woman said she spent a lot of time with Rouse, and they would go for drives, talk, or go out to eat.
She testified that she was at Rouse’s home one day and ended up performing oral sex on him. She said she didn't know exactly what happened that led to it, She was 16 at the time, she said, and after that encounter, sex continued and escalated to intercourse.
She also testified that when she was 16 she accidentally took a Percocet pill of her mother's that led to an addiction. Rouse started supplying her with Dilaudid pills after that, she said, and he would give her two Dilaudids after sex for payment.
Crown attorney Saara Wilson said Tuesday that Justice Pierre Muise said in his decision -- which lasted more than an hour - that he found the victim's evidence to be very credible.
Rouse will be sentenced Nov. 4.
Wilson said she's still considering her position on sentencing, but "it will be a substantial penitentiary term."
Rouse is currently serving seven years in jail after convictions at three separate trials in 2017 and 2018.
The convictions were for two charges of trading drugs for sex, one of sexual interference against a 13-year-old girl, and one of drug trafficking.
Rouse has two other previous convictions for sexual assaults. He was sentenced in 1999 to 15 months in jail, and in 2004 to three years in prison.
He was acquitted in December 2017 of sexually assaulting a six-year-old girl.
He is awaiting trial on three charges of sexual assault that were laid in January involving a different complainant. That trial is scheduled for next year.
