A psychopathic “Prince Charming” who raped several women, defrauded them and even forced a few to tattoo his name on their chests will spend the foreseeable future in prison.

Kolten William Raiden Mastronardi, 38, was declared a dangerous offender in B.C. Supreme Court on Wednesday, when Justice Ian Josephson sentenced him to an indefinite term in prison.

“Mastronardi falls within the ‘very small group of offenders whose personal characteristics and particular circumstances militate strenuously in favour of preventive incarceration,’” Josephson wrote in his decision.

“A determinate sentence is insufficient to adequately protect the public from Mr. Mastronardi.”

Under Canadian law, dangerous offenders sentenced to indeterminate jail terms are not eligible to apply for parole for at least seven years.

Mastronardi was convicted in 2006 on 12 charges including fraud, sexual assault, assault causing bodily harm, uttering threats and extortion. His crimes in B.C. spanned just seven months in 2005, when he targeted six women he met on through internet dating services, according to court documents.

In each case, he told his victims that he came from a large, powerful, mafia-connected Sicilian family. He said he was a gynecologist and insisted that his cultural traditions required the women to enter into a marriage-like relationship with him and be entirely submissive to all of his demands -- be they sexual, financial or otherwise.

In reality, Mastronardi was born with the name Gordon Stanley in Ontario; his mother told the court that there was a wealthy family named Mastronardi with rumoured mafia connections in the area where he grew up.

The victims’ relationships with Mastronardi are riddled with stories of sadistic sexual abuse, psychological manipulation, brutal beatings and the theft of thousands of dollars. He told them that he had to have complete control over every part of their lives, including what they wore, who they talked to and even when they bathed.

But in the beginning, Mastronardi appeared to be nothing less than the perfect gentleman.

“He presented as an ideal male partner when in fact a monster lay in waiting to abuse his victims physically, emotionally and financially. No part of his fantasy world was true,” Josephson wrote.

Whirlwind romance turns into horror movie

The women who were seduced by Mastronardi described being swept off their feet by a dashing “Prince Charming,” according to the judge.

One woman was so bowled over by Mastronardi’s charm that she decided she want to marry him after a single date. The next time they met, he told her that in Sicilian culture a couple is considered married once they have sex. He said that it was common for men to have more than one wife, and that all married couples have tattoos.

More ominously, he warned her that his cousin’s wife had been murdered by his family for not following their traditions.

He talked the woman into quitting her job and amalgamating bank accounts. Just two-and-a-half weeks after they first met, she agreed to have “Property of Kolten Mastronardi” tattooed across her stomach in large letters. He told her afterwards that he had a rare blood disorder and getting a tattoo could kill him.

Soon, Mastronardi began pressuring his victim to allow him to take on a second “wife,” saying his family was upset that he wasn’t following tradition.

He later claimed she had given him syphilis and accused her of sleeping with other men. He said his grandfather demanded that she be punished by beating her on the head and body and mutilating her genitals with a knife.

Claiming that he was being lenient, Mastronardi punched the woman until her nose was broken and her eye was black, then raped her with the handle of a knife.

After her brother appeared at their home a few days later and gave her a hug, Mastronardi angrily confronted her and said his relatives had been filming her from the bushes, and they were going to torture and kill her brother, his wife and their children before shooting her in the heart.

Hoping to protect her brother’s family, she tried to kill herself three times later that night: twice by tying a plastic bag around her head and once with a knife. When she found she couldn’t follow through, she called 911 and ran every red light until she arrived at the police station.

Extortion, fraud and manipulation from inside a prison cell

Another of Mastronardi’s victims was led to believe she had to pay his family a $20,000 dowry if she wanted to be with him.

One woman, a young student from Singapore, was told that if she did not have sex with Mastronardi, she would be deported because it was a crime to lead a man on and then not submit to his demands. As he drove the young woman to a hotel, he faked a phone call with an immigration official, telling them they could withdraw the deportation papers.

And all the while that Mastronardi was convincing women to become his “wives” and taking control of their money, he had a legal wife waiting for him at home in Burnaby.

Mastronardi’s wife didn’t start cooperating with Crown prosecutors until after he was convicted. When she did, however, she revealed a history of abuse strikingly similar to those of her husband’s victims.

She too had tattooed her chest with the words “Property of Kolten Mastonardi.” She too was warned that she would be killed if she didn’t follow family rules. She too was accused of infecting her husband with a sexually transmitted disease.

She also told the court that Mastronardi followed through on his promise to take a second wife, bringing home another woman that he would have sex with while all three were in the bed together.

After his arrest in 2005, Mastronardi wrote 540 letters to his wife, telling her that his family was watching her while she worked, asking her to lose weight and wondering why she wouldn’t get more tattoos. He also accused her of cheating on him when singer Michael Buble appeared at her office one day and kissed her hand.

Even though he was behind bars, he still managed to control his wife’s life. He even found yet another “wife” through a fellow inmate and ordered her to move in to his home, sleep naked with his wife and have sex with her. He said that the women could not answer their door or sit next to men on the bus, and ordered them to curtsy at the beginning and end of every jail visit.

The two women eventually deposited more than $13,000 into Mastronardi’s jail account at his request, as well as $1,200 into the accounts of other inmates.

A history of ‘despicable’ behaviour

Mastronardi came to B.C. after violating his parole following time in jail for a series of very similar offences involving seven women in Ontario. The judge who sentenced him described him as a “despicable coward” who has left his victims to face a years of suffering.

In a 2003 decision that Josephson described as “prophetic,” the Ontario judge wrote, “You are a sexual predator. You physically abused them by, amongst other things, and I am only particularizing four; chasing one of them with a blowtorch, pulling a toenail out, pinching their nipples and rubbing their wrists on the rug until they were raw with rug burn.”

In B.C., tests performed by a court-appointed psychiatrist confirmed that Mastronardi is in fact a psychopath.

One doctor who examined the case described Mastronardi’s chances of responding to treatment as “dismal.” Another doctor suggested that not only would therapy fail, it might also worsen his psychopathy.

Yet another doctor said that he would have diagnosed Mastronardi with post-traumatic stress disorder if he thought the incarcerated man was being honest. As it turns out, Mastronardi had asked his wife to look up PTSD symptoms on the internet and bring a list for him in prison.

Mastronardi also told the psychiatrists that he was addicted to crack cocaine and said that he was sexually and physically abused as a child, but the judge found there was no credible evidence backing up any of those claims, calling them “bizarre and unbelievable.”