Abbotsford (Josh Olund BCIT Radio A&E) – An Abbotsford man was recently found guilty of possessing child pornography after arguing at trial that all those images could have been saved by one of several other residents living in the same home. Keith Alfred Joseph Thibodeau, 50, was convicted on April 20 in Abbotsford court.
Thibodeau was acquitted on a second charge of making child porn available.According to court documents, the Abbotsford Police Department had received a report in October 2018 through the U.S.-based National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children that there was an address in Abbotsford that had downloaded images of child sexual abuse.
Thibodeau’s name was the one associated with the downloads and the IP address was linked to a basement suite in Abbotsford.Police obtained a search warrant, which was executed at the residence on Oct. 30, 2018.
Thibodeau and two other people were present at the time, and the landlord and her family were upstairs.The court documents indicate that police located 14 different electronic devices, but only two of them turned out to be relevant to the investigation.
A tablet and two hard drives that were found containing nearly 1,700 images along with four videos of child pornography, the documents state.
The Crown argued that Thibodeau used virtual or cloud storage, thereby making the child pornography available under his control.
Sentencing will be set for a later date.
