The president of Brampton’s Hindu Sabha Temple has been sentenced to 2 ½ years in prison for raping one of the temple’s congregants, despite an apparent attempt by a temple priest to buy the victim’s silence, according to a judge’s ruling in the case.

Parveen Sharma was sentenced May 2 after he was convicted in February of two counts of sexual assault. Justice Jennifer Woollcombe concluded Sharma groped the 25-year-old woman in the Brampton basement apartment she was renting from him in early October 2015. The next day he returned to the apartment and raped her.

Court heard he had befriended the victim and the morning after the attack, the victim called a friend, describing herself as having been “emotionally broken,” according to the ruling.

They collected the clothing she had been wearing the day of the rape and went to police.