Crown seeks 6-year sentence for Winnipeg magician, educator on child pornography charges

A Winnipeg magician and former educatorwho pleadedguilty to two counts of child pornography earlier this year may face up to six years in prison.

Daniel Kamenicky, 39, listened Monday asprosecutor Shannon Benevides told court the Crown was seeking a six-year prison sentencefor Kamenicky for making and possessing child pornography.

Court heardKamenicky, whose stage name was "Dan the Magic Man," took advantage of his numerous jobs with children to surreptitiously record and take pictures of thematthe schools he worked for, during magic shows, in public parks and onplaygrounds.

Most of the videos and imageswere of girls between the ages of eight and 10 and focused on their genital areas, both clothed and not. The videos were taken without the girls' awareness and Kamenickyused his magician skills to distract them, said Benevides.

Made 33 videos

In one video played for the court, the high-pitched creaksof a swing set could be heard in the background as Kamenickyencouraged girls wearing dresses to play on the monkey bars.

"OK, who can hang upside down the longest?" he can be heard asking on the video while recording the children.

In another video, court was told pulsating techno music with sexually suggestive lyricsplayed under imagesof kids at a splash pad.

Kamenicky admitted to making 33videos in all.

Winnipeg police were made aware of the images and videos when Kamenickygot a new cellphone, which automatically uploaded a series of images and videos to his Flickr account.

Yahoo, which owns Flickr, notified the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Childrenin the U.S. Using Kamenicky'sIP address, the centretracked down his location and notified the Winnipeg Police Service's child exploitation unit.

"So it wasn't his intention, as far as we are aware, to actually distribute it, but it's still an aggravating factor that distribution occurred, especially considering it's a risk one takes when making and possessing child pornography," said Benevides.

Winnipeg police raided his home last August. Between two computers and two cellphones, they found 53 pornographic images of children and 50 videos, 17 of which were downloaded.

"Of note was there were 11,144 'child other' images located in the digital evidence,"saidBenevides.

"Now what I cantell the court about that is that some of these were innocent however, there were many surreptitious recordings in a school setting, at magic shows, in stores, at restaurants and other public places."

School division notified: co-worker

Kamenickyhadbeen employed as aneducational assistant at Windsor School, a kindergarten to Grade 8 school in Elm Park, until he was arrested.

He had also worked as a "part-time, casual service provider" for Manitoba's Department of Families, a provincial spokesperson told CBC earlier this year, and had worked for the University of Manitoba with the Mini U program.

A statement presented in court from a Windsor School co-worker indicatedshe had noticed Kamenicky taking videos andimages of children and confronted him on his behaviour.

She told Kamenickyshe would report his behaviour and said she did so three times to the Louis Riel School Division's student support services and three times toWindsor School's principal.

Kamenickywas initiallycharged on Aug. 24, 2016. After his arrest, a provincial spokesperson told CBC background checks onKamenickyhad been done before he began a part-time job working with youthand came back clear.

He was immediately suspended after being arrested.

Officials with the University of Manitoba and the Louis Riel School Divisionsaid in 2016 he was suspended and background checks both organizations commissioned came back clear.

Statements from parents

Benevides read statements in court from parents of children who were videotaped by Kamenicky. "She was in a safe place, or supposed to be safe. It's not anymore," said one.

"We worry that there are more photos of our daughter out there in cyberspace, and of what context?" reads another. "We're told we will never truly know. We worry this will come back to her at some point and create challenges for dealing with authority figures, or other men in general. How much is the worry worth?"

A representative for the Louis Riel School Division could not be immediately reached.

A continuation date for the sentencing hearing hasyet to be scheduled to allow defence attorney Dan Manning to present his argument.

Manning said the six-year sentence the Crown is seekingis too high and the defence will ask for a sentence closer to the minimum of two years.

Behaviour that isn'tovertly sexual 'minimized'

NoniClassen, director of education at the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, said educators often aren't sure what to do with complaints when the offending behaviour isn't overtly sexual.

"Administrators and educators know what to do when things are black and white, but when it's in that grey area ... what ends up happening is there isn't a lot of training around how abuse happens, how it's built up," Classen said.

"These behaviours get minimized because they don't understand the risk associated with behaviour that isn't inherently sexual in nature.

"Thekey is tomitigate risk aroundhigh-risk behaviour," shesaid. "Itneeds to be brought to their attention, it needs to be responded to, to be corrected and to be documented."

Classensaid if an educator doesn't get the response they are hoping for from their immediate supervisor, they should escalate it to the superintendent and then the schoolboard if needed.