The Crown Counsel prosecuting Dutch citizen Aydin Coban in a child pornography case involving Port Coquitlam student Amanda Todd argued one person was behind 22 aliases tormenting the teenager online.
On Thursday afternoon (July 27), prosecutor Marcel Daigle launched the second of five parts in the Crown's closing arguments, alleging Todd’s “sextortionist” used similar language on multiple platforms, with different fake account names, to extort, harass and lure Todd.
Coban of the Netherlands has pleaded not guilty to
- extortion
- importing and distributing child pornography
- possession of child pornography
- communicating with the intent to lure a child
- criminal harassment
None of the allegations is proven in court.
Daigle highlighted to Justice Martha Devlin, as well as the six men and six women on the jury at BC Supreme Court in New Westminster, the similar — and sometimes matching — content the aliases used in their messages with Todd and with her Facebook friends and family.
BACK TO 2009
In exchanges with Todd between the users Daimon Luci and marzattack1 — dating back to 2009, when Todd was 11 — key words and phrases are the same, Daigle told the court in showing the messages side by side.
The chats with Todd on the various platforms such as Facebook, Skype, YouTube and Gmail “are meant to be read in conjunction” to provide context, he said. “These aren’t coincidences.”
In messages in 2010 with Todd and the social media users toddtit, Alice Mcallister, whatsthisman11 and kodymaxson, all four accounts are linked, Daigle argued, because they use the same patterns and threats: all target Todd’s family, friends and teachers to receive her explicit online content unless she gives her "sextortionist" more peep shows.
“The messages are cohesive. They’re all driving at the same point,” Daigle submitted. “These are written by one person.”
In one example presented before the jury, Daigle compared two messages by Alice Mcallister and whatsthisman11 that had the exact same wording; they appeared to be copied and pasted, Daigle claimed.
And between April and May 2011, when Todd was bombarded with messages from users named iambackmissme, door1ordoor2 and Miranda Todd, on YouTube and Facebook, the users had the same avatar of Todd — an image of her about to undress, Daigle pointed out.
Again, the demands by those three users to Todd were all the same, he said: She had “one week to decide” if she would perform a show or they would “fuck up her life.”
Daigle drew similarities to another cyberbullying episode between October and December 2011 for the accounts with the names Tyler Boo, Monica Stewart, Tylersike123, Marc Camerons, Katie Hutchkins and Austin Collins, on Facebook, Skype and Gmail.
Daigle said the latter five accounts were created as a result of the Tyler Boo account on Facebook.
“It’s the execution of the threat” to get what the “sextortionist” wants, he alleged while drawing further links between the aliases.
The trial continues.
