Gryba jailed two years for making, possessing child pornography
Warning: disturbing content
A Saskatoon judge said words could not express the “sheer quantity and vile nature” of the videos and images found on the computer of child porn offender Justin Gryba, but added “there is hope for him” when he sent the 27-year-old back to jail for two years less a day.
Chief Justice Martel Popescul sentenced Gryba on two counts of making child pornography — videos of boys he was mentoring as a volunteer with a youth organization — and two counts of possessing child porn in relation to about 10,000 additional child porn files found on an encrypted hard drive.
“The material was repugnant, disturbing and reprehensible,” Popescul said Friday in Saskatoon Court of Queen’s Bench, referring to the possession charges.
The charges of making child porn stem from 11 videos Gryba secretly made of boys in swimming pool change rooms, clearly focusing on their genitals, court heard. Although he described the videos as “despicable and creepy,” Popescul said they are on the low end of the child pornography scale.
“This was surreptitious recording of young boys changing, which is wrongful and unlawful, but amounts to a form of voyeurism,” he said. “It is, nonetheless, definitely a form of abuse.”
Gryba was arrested and charged while on parole from a two-year sentence for possessing and making available about 2,900 child pornography files police found on unencrypted computers in 2011.
He was sentenced in January 2013, but police were unable to break the encryption on one of the military-grade hard drives until the summer of 2014, when they found 10,000 more files and the videos Gryba had made.
Crown prosecutor Michael Segu argued Gryba could have helped police gain access to the devices much sooner, but defence lawyer Morris Bodnar said his client didn’t know the password to the data locker.
Popescul sentenced Gryba to 36 months on the two counts of making child porn, 17 months on one possession charge and 12 months — to be served concurrently — on the other possession charge. Subtracting 29 months of remand credit for time spent in custody while the charges were pending, Popescul reached the sentence of two years less a day.
He also banned Gryba from pools, parks and playgrounds for five years instead of the lifetime ban for which the Crown had asked.
Popescul said the mitigating factors he considered in sentencing included Gryba’s guilty plea, lack of criminal record prior to the first charges and the fact he is considered a low risk to reoffend.
He said Gryba took significant steps toward rehabilitation and appears genuinely remorseful, based on letters written to the victims and statements made to his psychologist.
Court also heard Gryba comes from a loving family and had a 90-per-cent average while attending the University of Saskatchewan, with hopes of entering medical school.
“The offender did a terrible thing, but there is hope for him,” Popescul said.
During a sentencing hearing last month, Segu argued Gryba should receive another five years in custody, in addition to the two years less a day he had already served.
Gryba’s defence co-counsel, Mike Buchinski, argued the twoyear sentence Gryba already served, plus the 29 months of remand credit he has accumulated after his second arrest in September 2014, was sufficient punishment. He requested Gryba be released from custody and serve a term of probation.
Outside the courthouse, Bodnar said it’s crucial that Gryba is serving his sentence at the Saskatoon jail, where he can continue seeing his psychologist.
“I’ve never seen a person try as hard to deal with treatment and to understand what the problem is. What most people completely overlook is that what we have dealt with here is an illness that has to be overcome. It’s not something that people want to do,” Bodnar said.
Popescul noted the “psychological hurt is deep and real” for Gryba’s victims.
In her victim impact statement, one boy’s mother wrote that “this will affect (my son) to some degree for the rest of his life.”