Maple Leaf Gardens pedophile Gordon Stuckless dead

Gordon Stuckless, the man at the heart of the Maple Leaf Gardens sexual abuse scandal, has died.

His lawyer, Ari Goldkind confirmed to CityNews that Stuckless suffered a brain hemorrhage on Tuesday. His condition deteriorated thereafter and he died in a Hamilton hospital on Thursday night.

Stuckless was released from prison on parole to a halfway house in Hamilton in December, 2019.

He was sentenced in 2016 to six and a half years behind bars — six after credit for his time on house arrest — for sexually abusing 18 boys over three decades.

That sentence was increased to a decade after Ontario’s highest court found the initial penalty was “demonstrably unfit” given the severity of his crimes.

However, the appeal court was split on the matter and, at the time, Goldkind said his client was seeking leave to challenge the ruling before the Supreme Court of Canada.

The case at issue concerned abuse that took place from the mid-60s to the mid-80s.

Stuckless previously pleaded guilty in 1997 for sex assaults on 24 boys while he worked as an equipment manager at Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens between 1969 and 1988.

He was sentenced to two years less a day in that case, but that was increased to six years on appeal, less a year for time served.

He was paroled in that case in 2001 after serving two-thirds of his sentence.