American gets Canadian jail time for crossing border with child porn

Published Jul 06, 2023  •  Last updated 16 hours ago  •  3 minute read

The exterior of the Superior Court of Justice in downtown Windsor is shown on April 22, 2021. Photo by Dan Janisse /Windsor Star

An American citizen nabbed at the border with “graphic, depraved, disturbing” child porn on his laptop computer was sentenced by a Windsor judge on Wednesday to six months in a Canadian jail.

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The lawyer for Hetal Vyas, 58, argued for a conditional sentence he could serve from home, but Superior Court Justice Renee Pomerance said such a sentence by a Canadian court is unenforceable in a foreign country.

Pomerance, however, sympathized with the circumstances surrounding the convicted man, who was arrested at the Ambassador Bridge a decade ago. The length of time it took to complete the legal journey through the justice system — only partially explained by the COVID-19 pandemic — wasn’t the only unusual aspect to this case.

Defence lawyer Leo Adler described his client’s life as being in a downward spiral of self-destructive behaviour after the November 2005 death of his seven-year-old son from leukemia. Drug abuse, gambling and child porn were all part of Vyas’s response to that trauma and his “incalculable grief.”

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Adler told the Star outside court that, shortly after his Sept. 12, 2013, arrest at the Canadian border, Vyas had attempted “suicide by cop” in a confrontation with police in Detroit. Officers responding to calls of an individual “acting out” shot Vyas in the ensuing confrontation, in which Vyas refused commands to put his hands up.

Since then, Vyas has received therapy and other help, embraced sobriety and lived a clean life, the court heard. He’s “become a different man since that fateful day he crossed the border with child porn,” said the judge, reading from her written decision.

Originally charged with possession of child porn and two counts under the Customs Act for possession and smuggling of prohibited goods, Vyas pleaded guilty to the Customs Act charge for unlawful possession.

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According to facts read out in court, Vyas told Canada Border Services Agency officers he would go through six or seven computers a year, using them to download child porn, and “after a while, smash them in shame, and repeat the process.” The court was told Vyas did not use his downloaded photos for sexual pleasure, but that he did it because he knew it was wrong.

“Even if the motive was not sexual pleasure, it does little to reduce the harm,” said Pomerance. The mere downloading and use of child pornography, she said, adds to the demand for such images and the continued exploitation of children and resulting social harm.

The trauma inflicted on the child victim reverberates through their lives with the knowledge that those images continue to be shared on the internet. The judge described the seized images that she viewed within Vyas’s “relatively large” collection as “graphic, depraved, disturbing.”

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While the defence was seeking a non-custodial sentence — even offering to have it served with a relative living in Ontario — Pomerance said the Crown had argued that, given the gravity of the offence, “nothing short of real jail would suffice,” and was asking for a much stiffer term of incarceration.

Canadian courts have emphasized the primary importance of denunciation and deterrence to others when it comes to sentencing those convicted of child porn crimes, with non-custodial punishment acceptable only in the most exceptional cases.

“The seriousness of this crime is beyond dispute,” said Pomerance.

The six-month jail term she imposed came in addition to 11 days credit given for pre-sentence custody.

A number of close family members attended this week’s Windsor sentencing hearing, all of whom were in tears as a court officer led Vyas off to jail.

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