Alberta soldier convicted on child porn offences awaits sentencing
Steven Massey exchanged sexual messages with police officer posing as 13 year-old girl
A CFB Wainwright-based soldier will be sentenced next month after having been found guilty in an Edmonton courtroom of making and transmitting child pornography.
Cpl. Steven Massey exchanged hundreds of messages with a U.S. Homeland Security police officer posing as a 13-year-old girl from Texas between March 20 and June 20, 2017, court documents say.
He was arrested on June 21, 2017, in Edmonton after an investigation by the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Team and U.S. Homeland Security.
In his written decision dated Sept. 8, 2020, Justice Brian Burrows said there was sufficient evidence to convict Massey on charges of making and transmitting child pornography.
In some of Massey's text messages to the fictitious girl named Emma, he described sexual activity the two would engage in if they were to meet, Burrows said in his decision.
"The messages he composed were about sexual activity with a child — the child Emma was pretending to be," Burrow wrote.
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"It does not matter in this context whether Mr. Massey thought Emma was a child or an adult," he said.
Sending the sexual messages to Emma constituted transmitting child pornography, Burrows said.
Massy, however, was found not guilty on a charge of luring a child.
Massey, aged 32 at the time of his arrest, had no concrete plans to meet with the fictitious Emma, Burrows said.
Massey had testified at his trial in August 2020 he suspected Emma was an adult pretending to be a child but continued the conversation because he was lonely.
He said Emma shared pictures of someone who appeared to be older than 16 and deflected his requests for spontaneous selfies or to speak orally.
"This would give Mr. Massey reason for suspicion that Emma was not the person she was presenting herself to be. Harbouring such a suspicion would be inconsistent with Mr. Massey believing that Emma was under 16," Burrows wrote.
Massey's sentencing hearing is scheduled for Feb. 16 in Edmonton's Court of Queen's Bench.