Police veteran skirts jail in child porn case
Former sergeant given conditional sentence for possessing computer images of kids
Glenn Bohn, Vancouver Sun
Published: Thursday, July 26, 2007
VANCOUVER – A former Vancouver police sergeant who used his home computer to view more than 2,000 sexual images of children can no longer surf the Internet but won’t be going to jail.
John Alphonso Dragani, a 55-year-old man who once headed the police department’s school liaison program and its missing persons unit, was sentenced Wednesday to a 12-month conditional sentence with a night-time curfew and a long list of other restrictions after pleading guilty to one count of possession of child pornography.
Dragani’s off-duty activities were uncovered after U.S. federal agents passed on credit card and other information to Canadian authorities about the Canadians who had purchased “members-only” access to child pornography websites.
According to Crown evidence presented in court Wednesday, Dragani used his credit card one time on April 1, 2003 to purchase an $88 one-month membership on a child pornography site.
In February 2005, after Vancouver police received a list of suspects in Vancouver, police executed a search warrant at Dragani’s home, seized two computers and later retrieved images in an unused area of the computer’s hard drive.
About two months later, Dragani was suspended with pay and later retired.
Twenty of the images in his computer were displayed Wednesday in provincial court in Surrey, on computer screens that were not visible from the public gallery.
Crown counsel Daniel Pruim briefly described the pose or sexual activity depicted in those images.
According to Pruim, two of the images were of a child crying during vaginal intercourse.
Judge Peder Gulbransen, pointing to expert evidence that the photographs depicted girls who were about 13 years old, said some of the images were “quite disturbing.”
But Gulbransen said they are “not the worst kind” of child porn available on the Web and said it’s not unusual for the courts to deal with cases that involve tens of thousands, or sometimes hundreds of thousands, of those kinds of images.
The judge said he also put significant weight on a psychiatric report by Dr. Derek Eaves, who examined Dragani and concluded he was not a pedophile and there was very little risk that he would re-offend. The judge noted there was no evidence that Dragani was storing the images for viewing later or was sharing the images with others.
“There’s no indication that he was involved with improper activities with any children, at any time,” Gulbransen added.
Some of the other mitigating factors the judge pointed to was that Dragani had no previous criminal record and had decided to plead guilty to the offence — a decision the judge said showed Dragani has “got the moral fibre to stand up and accept his guilt.”
Some of the conditions Dragani must comply with during his 12-month conditional sentence: he must attend and complete a counselling program about child pornography; cannot possess or use any computer or other electronic devices to access the Internet; cannot be alone with children under the age of 14, except for his children and grandchildren. Dragani’s name is also being added to a sexual offenders registry and he has to comply with similar conditions set out in a 12-month probation period that begins after the 12-month conditional sentence.
Dragani, who now works for a tour bus company, chose not to speak in court before sentencing.
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