Canberra burlesque, Possum Galore: Jake Elias Versteeg, 29 pleads guilty in ACT Supreme Court to rape, indecency
The son of top Australian burlesque performer Gianna “Possum Galore” Bagnara, has pleaded guilty to rape and indecency after meeting a woman on a cruise ship.
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The son of one of Australia’s top burlesque performers has pleaded guilty to rape.
Jake Elias Versteeg pleaded guilty earlier this week to sexual intercourse without consent and indecency, stemming from what prosecutors allege was him forcefully holding down a woman in his bed.
Versteeg, 29, of Warramanga in the ACT, is the son of Gianna Bagnara, a Canberra public servant who performs under the stage name “Possum Galore”.
Outside court, during a lengthy tirade, Versteeg told reporters he would “smash your face in” for being “disrespectful to women” and reporting on his case.
Despite having pleaded guilty, Versteeg said the charges against him were the result of “completely false allegations”.
The ACT Supreme Court this week heard Versteeg went on a burlesque-themed cruise with his mother, where he became infatuated with the woman who he would end up raping.
The attack took place in Versteeg’s bedroom, at the house he lives at with his mother, the court heard.
Versteeg’s barrister, Margaret Jones, described her client as having been a “love sick puppy” at the time, and said such an obsession was inconsistent with the forceful attack prosecutors allege.
Messages between the victim and her friends, read in court, showed the victim joking about Versteeg’s penis size, which the defence alleged was inconsistent with her being a victim of a forceful sexual assault.
The court heard Versteeg’s rape had torn a rift in the tight-knit burlesque scene, in which Ms Bagnara is highly respected.
Vertseeg was due to contest the charges at trial, but pleaded guilty at the final moment, and now says he only raped the woman momentarily, in a misunderstanding.
In a lengthy disputed facts hearing Versteeg admitted he had been messaging his victim obsessively.
In a series of message, after the rape, Versteeg said to his victim: “I don’t know what came over me”, which he denied was consistent with a forceful rape.
Ms Jones said Versteeg “didn’t come across as a liar” in his evidence, but conceded the victim was “an intelligent young woman”.
The court heard that in messages to friends, Versteeg bragged about having slept with the woman, but when the woman heard of his boasting, she messaged him angrily, saying, “the only sex we have ever had was non-consensual”.
“Truth doesn’t stay hidden for long, Jake,” the woman wrote.
Versteeg returns to court for sentencing in July.