Police seek public’s help in finding more child exploitation victims
A west coast man is behind bars for possessing child pornography and child luring, but police believe there may be more young victims.
The Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit — Newfoundland and Labrador — Internet Child Exploitation Unit (CFSEU-NL – ICE) is seeking the public’s help to identify the victims of a man who exploited children online from at least November 2015 until June 2016.
Oral Clarke of St. Jude’s, near Deer Lake, was sentenced in June to a year and eight months in jail at provincial court in Corner Brook. During sentencing, the 65-year-old admitted he created a false Facebook page using the name Ammon Charlebois and contacted a 12-year-old junior high student and engaged in sexually explicit conversations with her, which included sending her sexually explicit photographs and convincing her to do the same.
RCMP Sgt. Chad Norman of CFSEU-NL (ICE) said that as a result of information officers received during the investigation, there’s reason to believe there are potentially more young children being exploited.
Possible victims are believed to be between the ages of 10 and 15 and may be unaware they have been victimized.
The investigation also indicated Clarke might have contacted children through social media sites, including Facebook, Instagram and Skype, which permitted him to communicate with children from all over the world.
Investigators believe there may be additional victims in this province, other areas of Canada, and possibly the United States and United Kingdom.
Clarke had the following online user names and used these email addresses: Facebook Profile:
• Ammon Charlebois
Email addresses:
• ammonchar@outlook.com
• ammon.charlebois@facebook.com
• ammonchar@hotmail.com Skype user names:
• ammon.charlebois
• oe-clarke
Police are asking parents to speak with their children to see if they had contact with any of the above online profiles or in any other such cases.
Norman said online exploitation of children has become a major concern for police.
“We get quite a few of these cases,” he said. “Most children nowadays have some online access — cellphones, ipads, computers at home — and they can be susceptible in one form or another.”
Norman said people often make the mistake of putting too much information about themselves online, such as their date of birth, workplace and address on sites like Facebook.
He said police often depend on the public to aid in investigations.
“We understand many victims can be embarrassed to come forward. It can be a sensitive nature,” he said. “But it’s important to let us know (about crimes) so we can look into them and prevent similar crimes by online predators.”
Anyone with information to report on this matter can call police at 1-800-709-7267. If you choose to remain anonymous, contact Crime Stoppers tollfree at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477), text TIP190 + your message to ‹CRIMES› (274637), or submit a webtip at www.nlcrimestoppers.com.