Parsons sentenced
Rodney Parsons, 51, created a fake birth certificate to fool Dutch victim
A St. John’s man arrested after border agents caught him with suspicious photos was sentenced to 18 months in prison Tuesday morning on charges of luring a child via the internet.
A St. John’s man arrested after border agents caught him with suspicious photos was sentenced to 18 months in prison Tuesday morning on charges of luring a child via the internet.
Rodney Parsons, 51, had a two-year relationship with an underage girl in the Netherlands, which also earned him a conviction for forgery. In an effort to try to convince the girl he was younger than his actual age, he had doctored a Newfoundland and Labrador birth certificate to make it seem he was much younger than his actual age, and sent it to her.
Parsons dabbed his eyes with a tissue in provincial court as Judge Mike Madden told him that despite his guilty plea and the support of his family, “this is far from a suitable case for a conditional sentence.”
Madden sentenced Parsons to 18 months in jail for the child luring charge and 30 days for the falsified birth certificate,
to run concurrently, but gave him credit for six days already spent in custody before being granted bail.
Madden ordered Parsons to provide a DNA sample and told him his name would be on the sex offender registry for the
next 20 years. Upon his release from prison, he will be banned for five years from using the internet and having any contact with anyone under 16.
Parsons will also spend two years on probation with a number of conditions, including that he have no contact with the girl.
“This appears to be a situation where Mr. Parsons had inappropriate and genuine feelings for one child,” Madden said. “Obviously there’s counselling that’s going to be required here, which has yet to take place.”
Parsons was arrested almost exactly two years ago, after police conducted a search of his residence. They had been alerted seven months earlier by Canada Border Services Agency officials in Halifax, who had checked Parsons as he was returning from a trip to the Netherlands and found he was carrying suspicious images and documents.
Working with law enforcement in the Netherlands, police determined Parsons had been having a relationship with an underage Dutch girl.