West Island man charged in sexual assault of girl, 4

A Pointe Claire man has been arrested and charged with sexual assault on a girl, 4, and producing child pornography after police decrypted files on a home computer.

Richard Reber, 49, who also faces charges of sexual interference and invitation to sexual touching, appeared before a Montreal judge Friday afternoon. He will have a bail hearing on Monday.

Reber was arrested in March during a Canada-wide investigation called Project Salvo and charged with possession of child pornography. He was released on bail.

Since then, police experts have been examining computer equipment seized from Reber's home and said Friday they were able to decrypt video files and identify the suspect as the man taking part in the alleged sexual assault of the girl.

Montreal police spokesman Olivier Lapointe said police are getting better at cracking encrypted software.

"A lot of criminals — a lot of people who own child pornography — are using that, thinking it’s unbreakable. But clearly there's a good example today that it's not. We have specialists at Montreal police who work on those computers who are able to crack that and access the file," Lapointe said.