Judge finds Espanola man guilty of luring, sexual interference

Paul McColeman of Espanola, Ont., was found guilty on Thursday of 34 charges involving sex with teenage boys.

The same boys who, earlier this year during the trial, testified that they saw him as a father figure.

Justice Patricia Hennessy delivered her verdict in a Sudbury, Ont., courthouse. 

McColeman's convicted charges include:

• 13 counts of luring a child under 16
• 3 counts of luring a child under 18
• 8 counts of sexual interference
• 3 counts of procuring
• 2 counts of exposure
• 5 counts of invitation to sexual touching.

Online luring to do 'pranks, missions, dares'

The court heard that McColeman set up two Facebook accounts and an MSN account under the names Treber Boucher, Jennifer Johnson and "Hyperchick" to set up the sexual acts with the complainants. 

The victims were contacted and befriended between 2006 and 2014. Some were as young as 11 years old when they were first lured. 

The acts were referred to as pranks, dares or missions. They included oral sex, masturbation and anal sex with a person who was later discovered to be McColeman.

Once a boy completed the act, he would receive drugs, money or alcohol almost immediately afterwards.

Hennessy said she believes McColeman was behind the online contact for many reasons.

One of those reasons is that the same IP address was used to log on to both Treber Boucher and McColeman's Facebook accounts on several occasions, sometimes within minutes of each other.

Similar victims

Some of the boys knew McColeman before the online contact, but didn't know he was behind the accounts until later. Many of them frequented McColeman's house.

Hennessy told the court she noticed all of the victims had troubled home lives, were using drugs or alcohol, and were looking to increase the amount they were using.

Some of the boys had testified that they felt they could open up to McColeman.

In her summation, Hennessy noted how close victims became with McColeman. She said one victim's police statement described the sexual activities as "what sons and fathers do together."

Hennessy said the defense tried to paint McColeman as someone with "extreme generosity," who was trying to show these boys that there were "good people in this world."

In her analysis of the case, Hennessy said she found this "implausible."

"While McColeman wanted to paint himself as the Mother Theresa of this small town...he enabled these boys to maintain a disruptive lifestyle," Hennessy told the court before she delivered the verdict.

Inconsistencies in testimony

During her analysis, Hennessy said she acknowledged some inconsistencies between some of the complainants' initial police statements and their testimonies. That includes details like where, when and how some of the sexual acts happened.

But many of these details, she said, were irrelevant, and that their similar stories were fact-based.

Hennessy continued to say it's not unusual for young complainants to be erroneous with their testimony about sexual crimes, and that the court cannot expect a child's recollection to be at the same standard as an adult's.

"Some were children when the events occurred," she said. "Some were still children when they testified."

There is a publication ban on any details that could identify the victims in this case.

McColeman's sentencing is scheduled for July 14. The Crown may pursue a dangerous offender designation at that time.