{"id":934305,"date":"2026-10-15T19:42:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T19:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/934305\/"},"modified":"2026-10-15T19:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T19:42:09","slug":"sentencing-hearing-gets-underway-for-former-surrey-massage-therapist-with-ties-to-white-rock-penticton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/934305\/","title":{"rendered":"Sentencing hearing gets underway for former Surrey massage therapist with ties to White Rock, Penticton"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sentencing hearing gets underway for former Surrey massage therapist with ties to White Rock, Penticton<\/p>\n

Published 10:00 am Thursday, October 15, 2026<\/p>\n

The sentencing hearing for a former Surrey massage therapist convicted on multiple counts of sexual assault is to get underway in B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster this morning (Oct. 15).<\/p>\n

The proceedings for Leonard Krekic \u2013 who also has ties to both White Rock and Penticton \u2013 are scheduled for today and tomorrow<\/a>, in front of Justice Lance Bernard.<\/p>\n

Krekic was found guilty in May of 12 counts of sexual assault; a decision that followed a 35-day trial sparked by incidents alleged to have occurred at or near Surrey between Dec. 30, 1994 and April 25, 2017.<\/p>\n

Publication bans are in effect regarding anything that could identify the victims\/witnesses.<\/p>\n

In July 2023, police in Surrey issued a news release announcing charges against the then-51-year-old in connection with allegations of sexual assaults that had occurred between December 2001 and April 2017. The release \u2013 describing Krekic as a White Rock resident and issued in a quest for additional information from the public \u2013 noted that Krekic had also practised in two Penticton clinics in 2018 and 2019.<\/p>\n

The charges referenced in that release involved eight patients, and that during the timeframe noted, Krekic was working at a clinic located in the 10300-block of 136A Street.<\/p>\n

In December 2022, the College of Massage Therapists banned Krekic from the profession for 25 years and ordered him to pay more than $105,000 for sexual misconduct on the job, in connection with incidents alleged by six female patients to have occurred between 2012 and 2019.<\/p>\n

The maximum sentence for sexual assault is 10 years in prison.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sentencing hearing gets underway for former Surrey massage therapist with ties to White Rock, Penticton Published 10:00 am…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":934306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,87674],"class_list":["post-934305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=934305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/934306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=934305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=934305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=934305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}