EPS civilian staffer faces child-porn charges

Internet child exploitation unit swoops on information technology specialist

A civilian police employee has been charged with making and distributing child pornography, says the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams.

“There’s a strong sense of disgust; regardless if he works for us or if he works somewhere else, we feel the same way,” Insp. Carlos Cardoso, with the Edmonton Police Service serious crime branch, said Tuesday at ALERT’s Edmonton headquarters.

“This type of behaviour is not condoned, it doesn’t go with the moral values of the Edmonton Police Service.”

The 41-year-old man was arrested at his southeast Edmonton home Friday after a joint investigation by ALERT’s Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) unit and the Victoria police department. The man had worked for the Edmonton Police Service for nine years, most recently as an information technology specialist involved with online training.

The investigation began in February after the suspect allegedly began online conversations with an undercover Victoria police officer posing as a parent. Insp. Dave Dubnyk, in charge of the Alberta ICE unit, said the man believed he was making arrangements to have sex with the parent’s child.

“No child was ever in danger during the course of this investigation; however, the details of that narrative were of such a graphic nature that it constitutes a charge of making child pornography,” Dubnyk said.

While the parent in this case wasn’t real, Dubnyk said investigators are all too often involved in cases where parents play a role in the sexual exploitation of their own child.

“Sadly, I can tell you … in this province we have investigated instances where parents have actually been involved in attempting to make arrangements to exploit their child for sexual purposes,” Dubnyk said.

Once Victoria police determined the suspect lived in Edmonton, the information was forwarded to ICE and the suspect’s identity was learned before his home was searched and a number of computer and electronic devices were seized.

Investigators also seized the suspect’s work computer for forensic examination.

A man was arrested in a vehicle leaving the home on April 7.

Aaron Rothwell has been charged with agreeing to commit a sexual offence against a child, making child pornography and distributing child pornography. He has been released on bail and has to abide by a number of courtimposed conditions, including not possessing any electronic device, not to be within 100 metres of a public facility where children may be present and not to be in the company of any children. He is scheduled to make his first court appearance on April 26.

Cardoso said Rothwell has been suspended without pay. An internal investigation will decide his employment status with the police.