Hardened officers ‘nauseated’ by father’s alleged sex crimes

Man accused of molesting, trafficking daughters under age 18 over six years

Hardened police officers found themselves “nauseated” while investigating a heavily armed Alberta man accused of sexually abusing his daughters for years on a rural compound west of Edmonton.

The man is accused of 23 sexual offences against his three daughters, all under 18, who were abused over six years, the province’s joint crime-fighting task force said Friday.

The Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) unit, part of the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams (ALERT), began its investigation in October and arrested the man in a high-risk raid the following month.

At a news conference Friday, acting RCMP Insp. Pamela Robinson called the acts “utter evil.”

“The arrest may have stopped the abuse, but this family’s nightmare continues,” she said.

The sexual charges against the 41-year-old man, in custody since his arrest, include two counts of incest, human trafficking, arranging for a sexual offence against a child, two counts of sexual assault with a weapon, as well as making child pornography.

The accused also faces 17 firearms-related offences, for a total of 40 charges.

The man lived on what investigators described as a rural “compound” with the three girls, two brothers and the children’s mother. The girls were home-schooled. The mother was described as a victim who was manipulated by her husband.

Edmonton police Staff Sgt. Stephen Camp, who oversees ICE, said a witness who was close to the

The arrest may have stopped the abuse, but this family’s nightmare continues. These crimes were ... monstrous.

family tipped off law enforcement officers about the sexual abuse.

“It is quite nauseating for our seasoned officers here,” he said. “It makes investigators feel quite sick to think that for so many years of their childhood (the girls) were psychologically imprisoned by their father for a sick and sexual purpose. These crimes were quite monstrous to the family and to society at large.”

The investigation is the unit’s largest to date, involving dozens of officers from multiple agencies.

Police allege the father sexually abused his daughters, all under the age of 18, multiple times over the past six years. One was “procured for sex” with strangers on multiple occasions through Internet advertisements, instances which the father recorded on video.

Camp said the investigation continues, including into people who may have appeared in the footage.

When the man was arrested Nov. 16, officers seized 40 restricted handguns and rifles, a machine gun and “a dozen prohibited devices,” according to a news release.

“There was a considerable amount of firepower at that residence, which presented a tricky and unknown and immeasurable risk to our investigators in their attempts to enter the residence to rescue the girls,” Camp said.

Officers said the man did not offer any resistance.

The man’s name is covered by a court-ordered publication ban to protect the identities of the victims. The location of the residence is also being withheld. Camp would also not reveal the current ages of the victims for privacy reasons.

RCMP, Edmonton police, Child and Family Services, Zebra Child Protection and the Canadian Centre for Child Protection have been involved in the case. Camp said the girls are beginning a long road to recovery with help from child abuse support services.

“No child should have to endure what these three girls have survived,” he said.

The man is set to appear in court June 12 in Evansburg, a hamlet about 100 km west of Edmonton.