Local man's child pornography trial begins

Det. John Rice was the first Crown witness to take the stand at the trial of the 41-year-old Sault Ste. Marie resident.

Michael John Fucile pleaded not guilty to possession of child pornography and making child pornography available.

The offences are alleged to have occurred between May 2017 and March 2018.

Rice, a 32-year officer with the Sault Ste. Marie Police Service, has been a member of the department's technical crime and child exploitation unit for more than three years.

He told Ontario Court Justice Romuald Kwolek he was using software to search a peer-to-peer network on the web to find people trading in child pornography in this area.

An IP address popped up on Feb. 20, 2018, and Rice discovered someone was downloading child porn materials on that date, and had done it previously on May 16, Aug.  23 and Oct. 4 of 2017, as well as Feb. 12, of last year.

There was a lot of material in the first download, "not (just) one video or photo and that's a concern, and it keeps popping up," he explained to prosecutor David Didiodato.

The images showed young girls, between the age of six and 12, completely nude or in minimal clothing, with the focus on certain areas of their bodies, Rice said.

Similar photos from the August date indicated the IP address was making files available of young females (aged eight to 14), again dressed in minimal clothing, and in a number of poses, he testified.

Ten files were available on Oct. 4-5, one of which had images of two scantily-dressed six-to-10-year-old girls, along with three partial videos.

Rice testified that, on Feb. 12, 2018, the IP address was offering 100 files for download that he couldn't download, but was able to see what it was.

He said he reconnected with the device eight days later. He wasn't able to get the files, but saw parts of the same video he had viewed on Feb. 12.

On March 22, Rice and other officers executed a search warrant at Fucile's residence, where they seized a computer, tablets and other devices.

During cross-examination, defence lawyer Jennifer Tremblay-Hall questioned whether he was assuming material he wasn't able to download was child porn.

Rice said his software can detect child pornography by the materials' unique hash values.

"I know It's child pornography . . . it can't be anything else," the veteran officer said. 

He agreed with Tremblay-Hall that during a simple search for hard core adult porn, child pornography with an affiliated acronym could pop up.

Today, the court will hear from Det. Michael Rogers, a city police computer forensic investigator.

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