(JENNIFER STAHN / iNFOnews.ca)

A Kamloops sex offender was sentenced to spend 30 months in federal prison on Thursday after he pleaded guilty to possessing hundreds of images of children being sexually exploited.

Nicholas Mihalech, 26, was found to be in possession of nearly 1,000 images and videos of children depicting sexual assaults.

Mihalech previously pleaded guilty to the charges in provincial court, but sentencing was postponed as Justice Raymond Phillips needed time to determine whether the proposed 30 months was appropriate.

After reviewing case law, Phillips handed a sentence that aligned with a joint submission between both the defense and Crown, Nov. 25.

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RCMP began investigating in 2018 after they were given a tip about the sharing of images depicting child sexual abuse online, and they traced an IP address to Mihalech.

Police searched his home and seized multiple devices, which contained hundreds of files depicting the abuse. They were not shown in court, but Crown prosecutor Alex Janse read descriptions to the court of images and videos that showed sexual abuse of children from infants to adolescents.

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Mihalech will be registered as a sex offender for 20 years, as part of his sentencing.

On Oct. 28, Janse said Mihalech posed a moderate to high risk to reoffend.

"Simply viewing these images is enough to re-victimize the children who are depicted in these images who were, in this case, clearly sexually assaulted," she said.

His defense Lawyer, Joe Killoran, said a federal prison sentence will give Mihalech the opportunity to engage in "intensive treatment."

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"His family doesn't know what to do. They love him very much, but they're not equipped to handle this. They don't know how to fix this," Killoran said. "He's a young man. He could have a long future ahead of him with some appropriate treatment."

He served a previous sentence for a sexual offence, for which he received one-to-one counselling. Mihalech was then serving his two-year probation when the investigation began in 2018.

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