By Chelsea Laskowski

UPDATE: Man pleads guilty to child porn charges, had over 50,000 images

Sep 15, 2014 | 3:11 PM

A man with ties all around Saskatchewan didn't view child pornography until he moved to Prince Albert to be a caretaker for a friend's child, according to his lawyer.

On Monday, Sheldon Desnomie, 43, pleaded guilty to accessing and making available child pornography.

This is stems from charges laid September 2012. Police arrested a resident in Prince Albert following a crackdown on child exploitation by RCMP, called “Operation Snapshot.”

Originally, policy mistakenly arrested the person Desnomie was caring for since their investigation was based on the home's Internet connection, said Desnomie's counsel, Pamela Cuelenaere.

Desnomie told them he was likely the person police were looking for. Police found 54,000 files, including both pictures and videos of boys between 10 and 12, posing in various states of dress and involved in sexual acts.

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This disturbing “addiction to the Internet” started after an injury forced him to take time off work, Cuelenaere told the court. Those files were collected by a man whose social isolation in his new city and depression “exacerbated” the downloading and viewing of child porn, she said.

She added he is subject to mandatory minimum sentencing, which is one year for one charge and six months for another. They can be served concurrently, which led Cuelenaere to ask Justice R. Mills to sentence her client to one year and any probation he deemed appropriate.

She argued Desnomie was not actively spreading the pornography because he had settings to keep people from gaining access to what he downloaded.

Cuelenaere said of the types of child pornography on the Internet, these files were not the most offensive.

Mill replied what he saw was awful based on several written out descriptions, and “if there’s something worse out there, who cares?”

Crown prosecutor Shawn Blackman asked for a two-year sentence followed by five to 20 years of probation with a long list of conditions. Among them is Desnomie providing a current photo to local police services, becoming a part of the sex offender registry, and participating in a discretionary ban from parks and playgrounds.

Each time someone looks at videos or photos of this type of child abuse, they are re-victimizing the child, Blackman said. Despite the disconnection from in-person abuse, people like Desnomie create a market for that type of content, he added.

Perpetrators, distributors and uses all play a part in the dehumanizing and degrading act of the “sexual abuse of children,” he told the court.

Following the submissions from Crown and defence, Desnomie had a chance to speak on his behalf.

“I apologize for what I did. I know what I did was wrong,” he said, adding an apology to his family and the children. Desnomie’s mother and father were in the gallery and cried at times during the proceedings.

Mills explained there is no doubt Desnomie will go to jail, but reserved his sentence until Wednesday.

Desnomie has been out of custody for the past two years after his arrest. Currently he resides in Regina.

claskowski@panow.com

On Twitter: @chelsealaskowsk