Image Credit: Shutterstock
April 20, 2024 - 7:00 PM
It was bad enough that Benjamin Lanchick raped an unconscious 16-year-old girl who was a guest in his apartment in July 2021.
He made it worse by recording two videos of his activities with the severely intoxicated girl, but if he hadn’t made it worse yet again by sharing his videos with strangers on the internet, the girl wouldn’t have ever known what he did.
And Kelowna RCMP would never have found the 500 images and 41 videos of sexually assaulted children on his phone and computer.
Lanchick, born in 2000, originally faced six charges including sexual assault and making and publishing child pornography, as the images are described in the Criminal Code of Canada, which he pleaded guilty to.
When Crown prosecutor Patricia O’Neil added up the offences, she suggested he serve five years in prison — three for sexual assault plus two more years for child pornography.
She said the girl was partying at his home with a friend. She had sex with Lanchick twice earlier in the evening but passed out from from drugs and alcohol.
O’Neil said the rape and video were premeditated by Lanchick. He had asked the girl and her friend to record a pornographic video and had already recorded the girls kissing. He later bragged about raping the young girl while in an online chat with other child pornographers, then created a permanent record of his crime when he traded his videos for others like they were baseball cards.
“He knew and understood that child pornography is wrong and harms children but on his own admission this did not stop him from continuing to seek it out,” O’Neil said.
He traded the video through Instagram, which automatically flagged the videos in the direct messages and sent them to the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, which informed the RCMP.
He initially told police he must have been ‘hacked’ but once he was caught, he immediately admitted to it, said his lawyer Paul McMurray. There wasn’t much he could say in his client’s defence because the criminal code and recent case law made it clear he was going to prison.
McMurray argued Lanchick had no criminal record, could be supervised in the community and was remorseful for his actions.
“Mr. Lanchik knew by pleading guilty, he knew the Crown would seek a jail sentence,” McMurray said. “It’s an acknowledgement for the harm he has done.”
Provincial court judge Monica McParland reserved her decision to an unknown future date.
To contact a reporter for this story, email Marshall Jones or call 250-718-2724 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.
We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor in the link above. SUBSCRIBE to our awesome newsletter here.
News from © iNFOnews, 2024