A Winnipeg woman was sentenced to house arrest after a single date with a man she met online culminated in her stalking him for years and led to false accusations that resulted in the innocent man being arrested three times.
According to court documents, Jennifer Plantz, 34, pleaded guilty to criminal harassment and assault for 22 false police reports, in which she claimed that a man she had met through the dating app Tinder had sexually harassed and assaulted her.
“This innocent person went through hell,” provincial court Judge Raymond Wyant said at the sentencing hearing Monday.
Plantz received a conditional sentence of 15 months under house arrest, followed by three years of unsupervised probation and no contact or communication with the victim.
“The behavior you exhibited towards this gentleman is beyond acceptable, it is almost indescribable… this was a living nightmare for this man,” Wyant said.
“I can’t imagine how horrible, how terrified and how disrupted her life has been since you came into her life and engaged in these actions.”
Plantz and the man’s only date occurred in 2016 after the two met on Tinder.
Crown prosecutor Laura Martin said the victim attended the appointment and left immediately afterwards.
“At no time were the two of them intimate,” Martin said, and the meeting was the only consensual contact between the couple.
In 2018, some messages were sent online, but the couple did not see each other again until February 23, 2019, when Plantz gained access to the man’s apartment building through unknown means.
The man would not allow him inside and said he appeared to be inhaling an aerosol can. Later that day, she contacted the Winnipeg Police Service and reported that he had assaulted her. Police noted that her behavior was “erratic and senseless.”
The next day, Plantz contacted WPS and reported ongoing harassment. She claimed he threatened to hurt her and demanded she be his girlfriend. When they questioned her, she left the police station frustrated. Police believed she had “made up this incident.”
According to Martin, on March 11, 2019, he returned to the man’s residence, activated the fire alarm and said he had come to retrieve personal items from the victim’s suite. She had never been inside. Police entered the suite to search for such items and found none.
On March 13, 2019, WPS Plantz called WPS again and claimed that he had assaulted her. Police dismissed her claim when she discovered that she had in fact been admitted to a psychiatric ward during the time of the alleged incident and once again observed erratic behavior.
Plantz did not contact the man again until January 1, 2022, when he sent him text messages posing as another person he had met the night before. The man told Plantz to leave him alone or he would call the police, but Plantz “indicated the police would laugh at him.”
Days later, Plantz claimed that the man sexually assaulted her again at Club Regent Casino and “threatened and harassed her.” Surveillance cameras showed they had no interaction that night, but before police could determine this was a false accusation, a sexual assault warrant was filed and Plantz filed for a protective order against him. She spent a night in jail.
Just days later, the man was arrested again and spent two more days in custody after Plantz alleged he contacted her again, violating the protective order. The charges were stayed until April 2022.
From May 2022 to September 2022, police visited the man’s home three more times and ordered him to stay away from Plantz due to several false accusations of “harassment, threats and assault.” On one of the dates, Plantz told police that the man “had a gun and was coming to attack her,” Martin said.
In September, she told police: “He had assaulted her and provided photographs of the injuries to police, which were later used to support another assault claim.”
On October 30, 2022, following another false report, he was arrested in a traffic stop and his vehicle was impounded. They took him to police headquarters where, upon seeing his record, the police released him.
According to the agreed list of facts, Plants made 22 complaints against the victim between 2019 and 2022.
CTV News Winnipeg has asked Winnipeg police for a response as to why officers arrested the victim multiple times, after previous allegations were determined to be unfounded.
A Winnipeg police spokesperson declined to comment.
“It would not be appropriate for us to comment on the evidence given to the court on any matter,” a spokesperson said in a statement.
While waiting for his boss to give him a ride, Plantz approached him and assaulted the man “pushing him with both hands (causing him) to stumble back into the building,” the Crown prosecutor said.
The man told police he was the one being harassed and took steps to block her calls and her ability to contact him on social media. He also had to move three times and change his number several times.
In his victim impact statement, the man said Plantz’s actions severely affected his life.
“I can no longer answer the door, phone calls, social media, without feeling anxious and afraid that it will be you or the police coming to harass me again.”
He also said that years of harassment have led him to experience emotional and mental breakdowns.
“It has made me feel unsafe and scared to even meet or try to talk to women for fear that they will or could do the same thing,” the victim said.
Plantz declined the opportunity to say anything in court.
The chief justice said he had been diagnosed with numerous mental health problems, including bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder. He also has a history of methamphetamine use.
The court heard Plantz experienced an unstable upbringing, suffered abuse and was also homeless.
In 2023, she was arrested for a different incident.
According to defense attorney Tom Rees, he has been in supportive housing for victims of trauma and addiction since 2023, and has focused on living a sober lifestyle.
Although Judge Wyant said he was “impressed with the progress he has made and that he is on the road to rehabilitation, a suspended sentence is in order.”
He called Plantz’s action “clearly a waste of police resources” and noted how his actions have had a devastating effect on the victim.
“That man’s nightmare will never end,” Wyant said.