ROSTHERN – Former group home worker Brent James Gabona has been sentenced to 78 months, or six-and-a-half years in prison, for sexually abusing five residents at Shepherd’s Villa in Hepburn. The sentence was handed down in Rosthern Circuit Court on Wednesday.
Gabona had pleaded guilty in March 2023. He was to be sentenced in October 2023 but the hearing was adjourned until Jan. 24.
The sexual assaults against non-verbal residents in his care occurred for almost two decades, from 1992 to 2009 when he stopped working at the care home.
One of his victims, Darryl Boguski who is blind, has cerebral palsy, is autistic, and epileptic, was abused for 17 years by Gabona.
Darryl’s brother Rick Boguski had successfully applied for the ban on publishing his brother’s name to be lifted. In June 2022, a Saskatoon judge lifted the ban.
Rick Boguski had said that Shepherd’s Villa kicked Darryl Boguski out of the home he lived at for 25 years because he was acting out.
“And we now know why Darryl’s behaviour changed so drastically. Imagine yourself, or your own child, or your loved one or partner, mother, or father, being abused day after day, year after year, and not being damaged by it.”
The lengthy legal battle was difficult on Darryl, but he is “ amazingly resilient considering the horror that he lived for 25 years in Saskatchewan and 17 years of sexual abuse by Brent Gabona,” Rick Boguski had told SASKTODAY previously.
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