UW stabber back in court after sentencing error
Posted Apr 9, 2025 03:50:30 PM.
Last Updated Apr 10, 2025 03:22:52 PM.
The man who stabbed three people in a gender studies class at the University of Waterloo (UW) in 2023, was back in court this week.
An error was discovered when the justice calculated Geovanny Villalba-Aleman’s time served.
Justice Frances Brennan, in her ruling, had said Villalba-Aleman would be credited with 1.5 days for every day served in provincial jail. This is a fairly standard ruling, according to the Record.
But, what ended up happening was Villalba-Aleman was credited with two days per day served, disproportionately reducing his sentence.
On March 17, 2025, Brennan sentenced Villalba-Aleman to 11 years in prison minus time served. At that point had spent 627 days in provincial jail.
It was lawyers and a reporter who discovered the error. The prosecution then asked the sentence be recalculated. Brennan granted the request despite the opposition from the defence.
It was decided that Villalba-Aleman would have 3,074 days left to serve as of March 17, meaning the sentence would be up in August 2033.
He would be eligible for parole in 2028, after serving half the sentence. That provision was included in the original ruling.
The changes were made in Kitchener courtroom on Monday, April 7. At that time, Brennan offered an apology to Villalba-Aleman and called the error “regrettable.”
On June 28, 2023, Villalba-Alemen entered a gender studies class at UW and stabbed the professor and two students. The victims all survived the attack.
He was charged and found guilty of the hate-motivated attack, but Justice Brennen dismissed the allegations of terrorism.
