Bre McAdam
Saskatoon StarPhoenix
Warning: Story contains details of sexual assaults
For a decade, Cecil Wolfe touched the buttocks, breasts and genitals of 12 women during treatment sessions, claiming he was removing “bad medicine” from their bodies.
The “trusted and respected” Saskatchewan Cree medicine man and elder was highly recommended within his Indigenous community, often hired by the Saskatoon Tribal Council and White Buffalo Youth Lodge to perform ceremonies.
The women hoped Wolfe would help relieve their depression, stomach pain and cancer. Instead, they left feeling uncomfortable, confused and violated.
Many said they stayed silent about what happened because they feared spiritual punishment.
Sitting in the prisoner’s box of a Saskatoon King’s Bench courtroom on Wednesday, Wolfe, 63, admitted that he touched the women “partly for non-legitimate purposes.”
Instead of going to trial next week, he pleaded guilty to 12 counts of sexual assault against women he treated in Saskatoon, Loon Lake and Muskeg Lake Cree Nation between 2012 and 2021.
Justice John Morrall ordered a 24-hour publication ban on the plea hearing to allow the Crown time to inform the 12 victims about the plea.
Wolfe initially pleaded guilty in 2022 to all 12 counts of sexual assault. At the time, lawyers had jointly proposed a sentence of nine and a half years.
A Saskatoon provincial court judge expunged the guilty pleas a year later, saying Wolfe wasn’t properly informed of the consequences.
Although he’d pleaded guilty, Wolfe maintained during his sentencing hearing that the touches were for healing and not for a sexual purpose. He fired his lawyer soon after.
On Wednesday, Morrall conducted a thorough plea comprehension with Wolfe, partly through a Cree translator. He asked Wolfe if he was forced to plead guilty, if he’s pleading guilty “just to get it over with,” and if he understands the “nature and consequences” of the guilty pleas.
The following information comes from an agreed statement of facts entered in court.
During a doctoring session in April 2021, Wolfe touched a woman’s pubic area, told her that someone had put “bad medicine” on her, and asked her about her vaginal fluids.
The woman reported it to police. Wolfe was charged, and 11 more women came forward after reading about it in the news.
The facts state that he asked them to wear skirts to their treatment sessions. He would then tell them to pull their skirts down; sometimes he put his hand inside their underwear, and in half of the cases, he inserted his fingers inside them.
Wolfe produced “trinkets” that he said he extracted from the women, like cat claws, dog bones, snakeskin and, according to one woman, something that looked like mozzarella cheese.
In one case, Wolfe told a woman that someone had put something inside her when she was a child. He asked if she’d been sexually assaulted as a child; she said no.
He then told her she could have children after putting his fingers inside her vagina and “taking it out.”
