Warning: This story contains disturbing details.
An inmate who lured a B.C. correctional officer into his cell then threw a cup of bodily fluids at him has been sentenced to another 16 months behind bars.
The troubling incident unfolded at the Vancouver Island Regional Correctional Centre, located in the Victoria suburb of Saanich, in May 2025, according to a recent sentencing decision.
The court heard Eldon Maxime Lemaigre filled a cup with a mix of “faeces, urine and semen” before beckoning a guard under the false pretense of needing toothpaste.
Judge Lisa Mrozinski found the sentencing principles of denunciation and deterrence “highly significant” in this case, to send a message to other inmates considering a similar assault.
She noted that noxious substances are one of “very few weapons of choice” for inmates, including in a case cited by Crown in which another officer had a cup of faeces and urine thrown in her face.
“It is critical that anyone in that institution contemplating conduct like this understand that they will be met with a significant response by the criminal justice system,” Mrozinski said.
“I think we can be grateful that, in this case, it looks as if the officer absorbed most of the impact of the material on his body and on his uniform.”
Lemaigre pleaded guilty to assaulting the victim, and to mischief for a similar incident in which he spilled containers holding “urine and water, at minimum” at the door of the correctional officers’ office.
He was sentenced to 16 months for the first count and four months for the second, to be served concurrently.
75 prior convictions
The court heard Lemaigre is a 46-year-old prolific offender who has spent most of his life in custody, with 75 prior convictions dating back to 1994, when he was a teenager.
His offending—which included one previous assault on a peace officer—has continued “essentially unabated,” according to the decision.
“Because of your conduct while you have been incarcerated over all these years, it has not been possible for the correctional facilities to have you engage in any kind of counselling or any kind of training of any sort,” Mrozinski noted. “I suppose that is somewhat bolstered by what we saw in your conduct with respect to these offences.”
Lemaigre had a troubled upbringing, according to a Gladue Report submitted by his defence, having grown up in an undisclosed Saskatchewan First Nation where every single member was impacted in some form by the residential school system.
“Clearly, as a young person you experienced a tumultuous and turbulent and traumatic family life and that included witnessing violence between your parents,” Mrozinski said.
The judge found those factors reduce Lemaigre’s moral culpability overall, but that the clear premeditation of his latest crimes—as well as the understanding he would have of the severity of the offences, given his decades of experience with the criminal justice system—nevertheless call for a significant sentence.
While the correctional officer who was splattered with bodily fluids did not submit a victim impact statement, Mrozinski said it was not difficult to “understand how the victim would have felt.”
“We know that the purpose of criminal sentencing, along with other crime prevention initiatives, is to ensure that we continue to live in a just, safe and peaceful society and that is done by imposing just sanctions that have a number of objectives that are tailored to the nature of the offence and the nature of the offender,” she said.
“The living in the just, safe, and peaceful society extends to life in a correctional institution. You are there and other people are there and they are no less entitled to a safe environment and so the sentencing principles continue to apply even while you are in custody.”
By the time of the decision, Lemaigre had already accumulated 685 days of credit for time served in custody, 480 of which were applied to his sentence.
He was given one additional day to serve behind bars.
