A Fort Good Hope man pleaded guilty to two charges related to child pornography on Feb. 21.
Appearing via teleconference in NWT Supreme Court., Kenny Shae Jr., 23, pleaded guilty to one count of possessing and one count of distributing child pornography.
Between February and July 2019, Shae Jr. was viewing and sending child pornography through apps including Discord and Kik, according to the agreed statement of facts read in court.
Kik has a built-in screening mechanism for illicit images of children and flagged one of the photos Shae Jr. sent.
Kik reported the image to the RCMP, which prompted an investigation of Shae Jr.
In a search conducted of his home on Oct. 23, the police unearthed 1,500 images and one video relating to child pornography on Shae Jr.’s computer.
The children in the images were mostly girls between four and 10 years old.
During the hearing, lawyers referred to the case of Mario Laplante, who is before the same court for possessing almost 40,000 images and over 2,300 hours of child pornography.
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Laplante is expected to be sentenced in March or April, and counsel noted that the outcome may have a bearing on Shae Jr.’s sentence.
The offender is due back in court on May 10, when justice Andrew Mahar will set a date for the sentencing phase to begin.