Cody D'Entremont: The Man Who Identified as a Woman to Enter a Windsor Shelter, Identified as a Cat Afterward, Was Acquitted Despite a Credible Victim, and Then Faced Three More Sexual Assault Charges

On March 26, 2023, a woman staying at the Welcome Centre Shelter for Women and Families in Windsor, Ontario was sexually assaulted by another resident of the shelter. The other resident was a biological male who had gained access to the women's shelter by identifying as a woman named Desiree Anderson.

On April 4, the victim reported the assault to police. On April 18, Windsor Police released a public notice — with a photograph showing a person with visible facial hair and an Adam's apple — identifying the suspect as "Desiree Anderson, who may also be known as Cody D'Entremont." The public shared the notice. D'Entremont turned himself in that afternoon.

Windsor Police charged him with sexual assault. Windsor Police told media the suspect had been "processed as a female and should be referred to as a female."

Then, in the months between his arrest and his trial, D'Entremont began identifying as a cat. Not a woman. A cat. He acquired dollar store props — ears, a tail — and walked the streets of Windsor as a feline. The identity fluctuated: Desiree Anderson when presenting as female; Cody D'Entremont otherwise; a cat somewhere in between.

In August 2024, a two-day trial concluded with an acquittal. Judge Sharon Murphy found the complainant credible but not reliable. She found reasonable doubt. She acquitted D'Entremont.

In April 2025, D'Entremont was charged with three new counts of sexual assault.

The Welcome Centre and the Access Question

The Welcome Centre Shelter for Women and Families is a downtown Windsor shelter serving women and families in crisis. It is exactly the kind of institution that gender self-identification policies — applied to shelter admissions — are designed to include biological males who identify as women.

D'Entremont identified as Desiree Anderson. Staff at the Welcome Centre admitted him. He was housed in the women's section of the shelter.

The Blaze asked Windsor Police how D'Entremont was allowed to enter the women's shelter and whether there was a protocol. The police spokeswoman said: "That would be a question for the shelter." The Blaze asked whether police had inquired of the shelter about the entry. Police said that information was not available to the public.

The mechanism that gave D'Entremont access to the shelter — gender self-identification — was never investigated, never publicly questioned by the shelter, and never addressed during the subsequent criminal trial. As Rebel News noted about the trial proceedings, the question of what a biological male was doing in a female shelter was "never addressed by either of the lawyers nor the judge."

The self-identification policy opened the door. The door opened. A woman was assaulted. No one in the proceedings found the question of the policy relevant.

The Police Response — Processing as Female

Windsor Police's handling of the D'Entremont case provides a specific example of how police processing of trans-identified male suspects interacts with crime statistics.

When D'Entremont was arrested, he was processed as female. When media asked police about the suspect's gender, the spokesperson confirmed the suspect had been processed as female and should be referred to as female.

The photograph released with the public notice told a different story. It showed a person with visible facial hair and a prominent Adam's apple — male secondary sex characteristics unambiguous in the image. Windsor police were releasing a photograph of a biological male, describing him as female in the text of the same release.

The disconnect between the visual evidence and the police's gender classification illustrates, in a single document, how the self-identification processing standard operates in practice. The mugshot shows a man. The text says woman. Both exist in the same press release, issued by the same police service, seeking the same suspect.

When D'Entremont's assault is recorded in Statistics Canada's Uniform Crime Reporting Survey — which replaced biological sex with self-declared gender in 2019 — it is recorded with a female accused. A woman was assaulted by a biological male in a women's shelter. The crime data records this as a woman-on-woman assault at a women's shelter.

The Trial — August 2024

The Two-Day Hearing

D'Entremont's sexual assault trial before Judge Sharon Murphy ran for two days in August 2024. Rebel News covered the proceedings directly and described D'Entremont as "dismissive and nonchalant" throughout.

The complainant — who cannot be named due to a publication ban — testified that D'Entremont had verbally abused her on March 26, 2023, and sexually assaulted her at the shelter. No physical evidence of the assault was presented. The case rested substantially on the complainant's testimony.

The Acquittal

Judge Murphy acquitted D'Entremont. In her decision, she stated that she found the complainant "credible" — meaning she believed the complainant was telling the truth as she understood it — but not "reliable" — meaning the judge was not satisfied that the complainant's account was sufficiently accurate or consistent to meet the standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt.

The credible-but-not-reliable distinction is not uncommon in sexual assault cases where there is no physical evidence. It reflects the legal reality that a judge or jury can believe a witness is honest but find that the evidence does not conclusively establish what the witness believes happened. It is not a finding that the assault did not occur. It is a finding that the standard of proof required for criminal conviction was not met.

Rebel News's David Menzies, who attended the trial, found the distinction difficult to reconcile: "In the final analysis, the judge found the complainant to be credible but not reliable. Because she agreed with his lawyer that there was reasonable doubt, D'Entremont was acquitted. But incredibly, the elephant in the room was never addressed by either of the lawyers nor the judge."

That elephant — the mechanism by which D'Entremont had gained access to the women's shelter in the first place — remains, as of the acquittal, unaddressed in any legal proceeding.

What the Acquittal Means for the Record

The acquittal is a legal finding. It means that in the criminal law system, D'Entremont has not been convicted of the March 26, 2023 assault at the Welcome Centre. The assault was not proven beyond reasonable doubt.

This does not erase the documented pattern. The victim reported the assault. Police investigated and charged. A judge found the victim credible. An acquittal in a specific criminal proceeding does not determine what happened on March 26, 2023 — it determines only that criminal conviction requires more certainty than the evidence provided.

The woman who reported the assault is a person described by the judge as credible. She remains unnamed. Her experience is part of the public record of this case regardless of the legal outcome.

The Cat Identity

In the period following his arrest, D'Entremont reportedly began identifying as a cat. According to sources cited by Rebel News, he would don dollar store cat ears and a tail and walk the streets of Windsor as a feline. Rebel News noted: "Whether he identified as a male or female feline remains unknown."

The evolution from female identity to feline identity is documented in reporting because it illustrates the specific mechanism that made the Welcome Centre assault possible: a self-declaration standard with no threshold of verification, durability, or coherence. D'Entremont declared himself a woman. He was housed among women. He declared himself a cat. There was no institutional process available to distinguish one declaration from the other, because the policy basis for admission to the women's section of the shelter was self-declaration alone.

D'Entremont also reportedly claimed to have psychic powers. None of this — the cat identity, the psychic claims, the movement between male, female, and feline self-presentation — was deemed relevant to his credibility during the criminal proceedings.

Between Charges: January 2024

While awaiting his August 2024 trial, D'Entremont violated his bail conditions. On January 28, 2024, he was charged with assault causing bodily harm and assault by choking. These charges also subsequently resulted in dismissal.

The record between the original arrest and the trial acquittal is therefore: arrest for sexual assault, bail violation including assault by choking, new charges dismissed, original charges acquitted. He was in custody awaiting the August trial at the time some of the subsequent incidents occurred.

The Three New Charges — April 2025

In April 2025, D'Entremont was charged with three new counts of sexual assault. Rebel News reported on the new charges on April 22, 2025, describing D'Entremont as having "more lives than a proverbial cat."

The three new charges represent a documented pattern of sexual offending that extends beyond the March 2023 Welcome Centre incident. The legal outcome of the new charges is not yet available.

D'Entremont's total documented contact with the sexual assault charge process as of April 2025: charged 2023, acquitted 2024, charged again 2025 with three new counts. The women who reported these incidents are, in each case, unnamed and protected by publication bans.

The Broader Context — Ontario's Third Shelter Assault

The D'Entremont case is, within the documented record in this database, the third documented instance of a trans-identified male sexually assaulting a woman at a Canadian women's shelter within a two-year period: Shane Jacob Green in Parry Sound in 2022, D'Entremont in Windsor in 2023, and Mika Lin Katz in Edmonton in 2024.

Each case involves a different mechanism of access — all grounded in gender self-identification policy. Each case involves a woman reporting an assault to police. Each case involves the same question that Windsor Police declined to answer and the Windsor court did not address: what mechanism allowed a biological male into a space designed to protect women from biological males, and what does that mechanism's continued operation mean for the next woman who seeks safety there.

The answer, in all three cases, is: the same mechanism. The same policy. The same outcome.

Conclusion

Cody D'Entremont identified as Desiree Anderson. He gained access to a Windsor women's shelter. A woman at that shelter reported that he climbed into her bed and sexually assaulted her. She was found credible by a judge who nonetheless acquitted him. He was charged with three new sexual assault counts in 2025.

Windsor Police processed him as female throughout. The crime statistics record a female accused. The shelter policy that gave him access to the women's section was never examined in any proceeding.

The woman who reported what happened to her in March 2023 cannot be named. She is a publication ban. She is a complainant. She is a person the judge described as credible.

She is also, as far as the public record shows, the first person D'Entremont assaulted in a women's shelter. She was not the last.