Man sentenced to prison on child porn charges

A 20-year-old Blood Reserve man who pled guilty to child pornography-related charges last fall has been sentenced to four years and nine months in prison.

Skylar Pantherbone received his sentence Tuesday at Lethbridge provincial court from Judge Jerry LeGrandeur on charges including the distribution and possession child pornography, extortion, luring, making threats, trafficking and breach of release conditions.

Pantherbone was in possession of over 5,000 images of child pornography for the purposes of trafficking when arrested on two different occasions in 2016 and 2017, but the most serious charges stemmed Pantherbone’s attempts to coerce pornographic images from two girls, ages 15 and 16, both known to him, by means of intimidation and threats. In one girl’s case Pantherbone threatened to beat and rape her if she refused to comply with his demands for nude images.

The fact Pantherbone had repeated similar predatory luring behaviours with two separate girls of about the same age constituted a “reasonably close nexus,” and disturbing pattern of behaviour, between the offences, said LeGrandeur.

“Clearly his purpose was to intimidate to get what he wanted,” stated LeGrandeur in his remarks.

LeGrandeur took into account Pantherbone’s First Nations background, other psychological factors and Pantherbone’s willingness to seek counselling for his sex addiction in determining his sentence, but felt the threats of violence to the girls, and the underlying predatory luring pattern displayed by Pantherbone, warranted a lengthier sentence.

Pantherbone will get credit for 467 days served in pre-sentencing custody, will have to submit a DNA sample to the national sex offender registry, and will be prohibited following his prison sentence from working in vulnerable sectors or being near public areas without supervision where children are present.

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