Edmonton man sentenced to 10.5 years for child porn, luring

Edmonton resident Chase Phillipe Viau has been sentenced to 10.5 years in jail after pleading responsible to 6 counts of kid porn and different minor-related prices.

He pleaded responsible by an Agreed Assertion of Info, submitted by his counsel on September 6, 2022 on the primary day of what was scheduled to be a four-week trial. 

Viau was discovered responsible of possession of kid porn between September 1 2020 and March 3 2021, in addition to: luring, “speaking with an individual who he believed was beneath 16 for the aim of facilitating an offence;” sexual interference, “making sexually specific materials accessible to an individual beneath 16 for the aim of speaking with that particular person to facilitate a sexual offence;” and breach of a no-contact situation. 

“At a time when Mr. Viau had completed a custodial sentence for a sexual interference conviction and was nonetheless sure by a probation order, he began speaking with the complainant by Snapchat,” the authorized doc states. “She was then 14 and he was 22.”

“The connection progressed to in-person conferences and sexual actions proposed by Mr. Viau, together with unprotected penile-vaginal and penile-oral intercourse,” it states.  Between September 2020 and February 2021, there have been an estimated twenty such encounters, along with nude pictures despatched by the complainant to Mr. Viau at his request.” 

It was the complainant’s mom who found the messages and contacted the police in December 2020 — however it didn’t instantly finish the connection. 

“Their investigation then concerned organising an undercover persona of a 14-year-old lady and contacting Mr. Viau by his Snapchat deal with,” the doc continues. “He acknowledged that he knew that 16 was the age of consent.”

Viau was arrested and launched on bail, when he contacted the minor once more, in breach of a court docket situation not to take action.

He “requested that they meet for intercourse. Although that didn’t occur, movies of the complainant that meet the definition of kid pornography had been discovered on his cellphone.” 

Viau’s sentencing listening to was not till September 5, 2023, with the delay being attributed to ready on the accused to enter pleas from one other indictment, one with 16 counts of comparable prices from the identical time frame. 

From that indictment, Viau pleaded responsible to 2 prices of luring, one with somebody beneath the age of 18, one beneath the age of 16. 

In whole it has been confirmed Viau “corresponded with six completely different women, all of whom informed him they had been between the ages of 14 and 16.”

He would provide them cash, marijuana or alcohol “in trade for intercourse or nude pictures,” and communications could be “various length and lengths” — with the newest communication “over a substantial interval,” racking up 822 printed pages value of messages. 

Viau, now 25 years previous, was adopted as an toddler right into a middle-class household with no historical past of abuse. 

Viau’s adoptive dad and mom, who attended the listening to and proceed to supply their help, stated that they had “issue with him all through his youth,” as he was hyperactive and compulsive, affected by ADHD and Tourette’s syndrome. 

He has labored part-time at a golf course and labored in baggage dealing with on the airport, however has not been supplied a full-time place “due to his poor work habits.”

Viau took “accountability for his actions and acknowledged that they had been unsuitable, although he can not clarify why he re-offended after his first conviction.”