No bail for suspect in child luring case

SKYLER PANTHERBONE FACING SEVERAL CHARGES INVOLVING EXTORTION AND CHILD PORN

A judge has refused to release from custody a 20-year-old man accused of luring and extorting a Lethbridge teenager earlier this year.

Following a bail hearing Thursday in Lethbridge provincial court, Judge A. Lefever denied bail to Skyler Pantherbone who is charged with child luring, extortion, accessing, possessing and distributing child pornography, as well as drug trafficking, possession of stolen property and possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose.

Pantherbone, who appeared in court by closed-circuit TV from the Lethbridge Correctional Centre, was charged following a joint investigation by ALERT's Internet Child Exploitation unit, Blood Tribe Police and Lethbridge Police into a report that a man had lured and sextorted a Lethbridge teenager by hacking into her social media account and accessing private photos.

Last March the victim, who police said did not know the perpetrator, reported the incident to a Lethbridge police school resource officer.

Pantherbone was arrested at a home on the Blood Reserve where a number of weapons, electronic devices and drugs, including suspected fentanyl and oxycodone, were seized.

The accused also faces three counts of breach of recognizance, which stem from a previous ICE investigation where he was arrested last September for similar offences.

In that investigation, police reported at least three teenage girls in the Medicine Hat area were contacted online through Facebook by a person not known to them using the name Ted Mitchell. The suspect requested the victims' Snapchat username, but when they refused the man sent them a sexually explicit image of themselves they had previously posted online, and threatened to send the images to their friends and family.

The Southern Alberta ICE team investigation led them to Pantherbone, then 19, who was arrested at a rural property near Standoff, then later released on bail.

The accused is scheduled to return to court Sept. 11 in Cardston.

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