Ex-Church Youth Volunteer Pasted Pictures of Boys He Knew into Porn, Court Hears

By Daryl Slade
Calgary Herald
May 6, 2013

http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/crime-and-justice/church+youth+volunteer+pictures+heads+boys+knew/8344737/story.html

The mother of a young boy who was sexually molested by former church youth volunteer Kyle Roderick Janssen says her entire family “was devastated by the blatant and absolute breach of trust.”

The woman, who cannot be named in order to protect her son’s identity, said in her victim-impact statement she read in court at a sentencing hearing on Monday that her family had not yet recovered from the betrayals of trust.

“We are emotionally raw and more vulnerable than we have ever been,’ the mother, whose son was one of a half-dozen victims of the pedophile, told provincial court Judge Catherine Skene.

“I felt a tremendous sense of guilt for not having protected my young son from this predator . . . it is of the utmost importance to see that no other children will be put in harm’s way by Mr. Janssen’s release back into society. I implore you that all possible means be introduced so this will never be possible.”

Crown prosecutor Nadine Nesbitt is attempting to have Janssen, 36, declared a long-term offender, subject to a determined prison sentence followed by up to 10 years of community supervision after he is released.

Neither Nesbitt nor defence lawyer Kim Ross have yet stated how long they feel the sentence should be.

Janssen pleaded guilty a year and a half ago to 18 charges of child pornography and sexually abusing boys over a five-year period.

Earlier, Nesbitt showed and described to the judge many samples of the 78,841 disturbing child pornography images and 3,374 videos found on Janssen’s computer. She said the images of young children — mostly boys — were degrading and involved sex and bondage by men.

She said Janssen also carefully altered many photos and videos to involve boys he knew. The videos were between 18 seconds and more than 27 minutes in length, and included “the whole spectrum, including bondage.”

“Mr. Janssen has taken pictures and altered them by putting heads of children he knew and put them on other boys’ bodies in the videos,” said Nesbitt.

One of the boys whose photo Janssen used, she said, was of the son of a pastor.

“There were no allegations of sexual abuse or child pornography of (the pastor’s son),” she said. “But he did use the boy’s picture to make it look like Johnny was (performing a sexual act on) Mr. Janssen.”

At one point during the prosecutor’s description of the images, which could not be seen by the public, Skene requested a break, saying “that last video was very disturbing.”

Later, when Janssen was loudly sobbing with his hands in his face in the prisoner’s box, the judge told him, “Mr. Janssen, that’s enough.”

Janssen replied, “Sorry, I can’t help it.”

The judge then told him if he couldn’t keep himself composed he would have to wait outside the courtroom.

Following a break, Janssen returned and there were no further outbursts.

Nesbitt said the offender. aside from the production of pornography of the boys he knew, also had 134 peer-to-peer chats when exchanging child pornography with other people on the Internet.

An agreed statement of facts presented in court says Janssen “used his position as a church counsellor and trusted friend to take boys on trips and bring them to his house to hang out, play video (games) and use his hot tub.”

Janssen admitted to making and distributing child pornography and sexual assault, among other charges.

Janssen made his guilty pleas while several family members of the boys he is accused of photographing and filming were present.

He began taking the pictures and videos of the boys, all under the age of 14, in January 2006. By 2009, Janssen had progressed to sexually touching six of the boys, aged six to 13.

Many of the assaults occurred in the basement bedroom of a Calgary home Janssen shared with his brother. By October 2010, Janssen had caught the attention of an FBI agent working undercover to monitor the exchange of child pornography on an Internet file-sharing network.

Janssen distributed thousands of images and videos of the sexual abuse of children while operating under the username “jonnydoitmore.”

The sentencing hearing continues Wednesday with more victim-impact statements and other evidence.

Contact: dslade@calgaryherald.com