Former cadet captain says he found USB drive loaded with child porn on the ground

WARNING: This story contains details of alleged sexual abuse that some readers may find disturbing.

A former air cadet captain has denied touching two young boys who slept over at his house regularlyand claimed he'd found aUSBdrive containingthousands of deleted child pornography images lyingon the ground.

At the start of his trial in mid-September, Adrian Schmid, 49, pleaded not guilty to eight charges.

They includetwo counts of sexual interference, two counts of invitation to sexual touching and one count of making sexually explicit material available to a person under 16. He's also facing one count each of making, accessing and possessing child pornography.

The offences are alleged to have occurred between August 2019 and June 2022.

The allegations involve three children, two of whom are brothers.The identities of the witnesses and youths involved are protected under a publication ban.

Schmid's trial has lasted roughly three weeks. It was expected to wrapup by the end of this month, but closing submissions have now been pushed back toOct. 10.

Family grew to trust Schmid

Schmidsat silently takingnotes at a small table through most ofthe judge-alone trial, which started with Justice Pierre Roger hearing testimony fromthe father of one of the complainants.

The man, who also cannot be identified, described how Schmidgrewcloser tohisfamily in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Adrian was a single party of one, so during COVIDwe included him in our group," the father testifiedin mid-September.

The mandescribed how Schmid gained the family'strust and would regularly host two of his sons for sleepovers at his house.

The man grew to consider Schmid a close friend, and said he and another son helped him renovate his house. On Schmid's birthday, the family baked him a cake and delivered it to his door.

"We trusted him more because he was a member of the cadets he was a member of the military," the father said. "I guess we assumed that he had a higher purpose, so he's more responsible," the man testified, describing his family as "very trusting to begin with."

Boy says he was 13 when abuse began

The man told the court his two boys seemed toenjoygoing for sleepovers and would ask to go, at least at first.

But afterthe older boycame forward with allegations ofhorrific abuseby Schmid, police asked the father to identifyphotos of his youngest sonstanding naked in the bathtub the manhad helped install.

The court also heard from the older of the two brothers, who was 13 when the alleged abuse began, andwhose statement to police was played during the trial.

The youth said Schmid would start by touching his lap andpenis before moving his hand underneath his clothes.

Sometimes gripping the hand of a family member next to him, the youthtestified that Schmid would first instruct him to masturbate in front of him, then he would masturbate the youth.

The youth identified sex toys that he said Schmid used on him, and said Schmidwould show him pornography involving both teens and grown men.He also described incidents of penetrative anal intercourse and oral sex.

The youth alleged Schmid said on at least one occasion, "Remember, I'm teaching you." He told police Schmid also warned him not to tell anyone or he'd come to regret it.

Crown lawyer Aquilas Kapend also presented text messages between Schmid and the youth from October 2021 involving a marker messages that, the youth testified, led him to believe Schmid wanted him to insert the writing utensil into his own anus.

"Try going almost all the way in," Schmidtexted. "Go slow and you should feel a second set of muscles. Push past those and angle towards you [sic] stomach. You could also use your middle finger."

In another text exchange months later, Schmid appears concerned about their messages.

"We need to come up with a password or phrase so that if you text me like last night I will know it's you and not someone using your phone," he wrote.

Questioned under cross-examination

During cross-examination by defence lawyer Bruce Engel, the youthtestified he couldn't remember many of the details ofwhat had transpired, especially during their early alleged encounters.

The youth told court he didn't think his younger brother had been subjected to the same physical abuse, andwas often in bed upstairs when it occurred. But he said a thirdunrelated boywould sometimes stay over at Schmid'shouse.

In a written statement to police, the youth said Schmid instructed him to touch and masturbate the other boy. Hetestified thatwhile he didn't want to do these things, he felt he couldn't disobey.

"I was scared to say no," the youth said.

During cross-examination, Engel suggestedthat the early encounterswithSchmid had never happenedand questioned other details of his story.

Those included timing of both the youth's statement to police and when the family met with a lawyer, as well as whether the youth knew the other younger boy had made allegations about both him and Schmid.

3rd child also testifies

That third child would provide his own testimony, speaking of numeroussituations he described as inappropriate andpointing the finger at both Schmid and the first youth.

Only 10 years old at the time of his police statement, the third child said he wonderedwhy Schmid, in one instance, had touched his penis and asked if he was ready for sex.

"His exact words were asking, 'Was I ready to have that?' And it made me feel really uncomfortable,'" the boy told police.

In court, hesaidSchmid watchedwithout interveningas the other underage complainant performed an inappropriate sexual act on him.

Nor did Schmid intervene, he said, when the older boy stripped naked and sat on the couch after being told they would be taking showers.

You're just twisting this completely out of context, out of proportion -Adrian Schmid, speaking to the Crown

He also recalled an incident where Schmid offered to teach him about condoms.

"I found it kind of strange [that] out of all people in the world that would teach me how to use those kinds of things, it'd be him," he said.

The lawyers did not explore deeply incidents between the two boys where Schmid wasn't present.

The Superior Court of Justice also heard from one police officerwho testified that more than 11,000 images and 140 videos of child pornography were recovered from a USB drive taken from Schmid's house.

The files which showed youths engaging in a wide range of graphic sexual acts had been deleted, but police were able to recover them after their seizure.

In all, four devices taken from Schmid's house included files later classified as child pornography.

Schmid denies allegations

Last week,Schmid pushed back against the testimony of the two young boys and said they lied.

He denied any touching took place or that he invited any sexual touching. While he agreed the sex toys were his, Schmid testified he didn't know how one boy's DNA wound up onthem.

"No idea," Schmid said, claiming that while a detective said the toys were seized from under the sink that's not where he stored them.

Schmid did recall an incident when one of the boys got naked and sat on the living room couch.

But in his retelling, Schmid instructed the boy to get dressed and later spoke to him about the inappropriate behaviour. Healso said he didn't bring up the incident with his parents because the boy asked him not to.

Schmid said his text about needing a secret code was in response to a shocking text of a sexual nature from the older boy.

Schmidtestified that he didn't believe it was really one of the boys who'd sent it, but afterdetermining it was, he told the boy he wasn't going to engage.

But Schmid said he believed a code would be good for future use, in case someone else was fooling around with the youth's phone.

The Crown gave a different reason why Schmid wanted a code: so he wouldn't get caught texting a minor inappropriately.

As for the text message about the marker, Schmid said it came after a frank conversation he had with the youth and the youth's father about why someonemight explore that part of their body.

The cadet leader told the court he believed himself to be a mentor-like figure and was providing how-to information to the teenager.

But KapendaskedSchmidwhy he was texting a 15-year-old about these topics at all.

"You're just twisting this completely out of context, out of proportion," Schmid said. "It's the intent of my text messages that you're twisting."

Said USBdrive was found 15 years ago

Schmid also testifiedthat he'd found theUSBdrive with more than 11,000 images on the ground outsideroughly 15 years ago.

After plugging it into his computer and realizing it contained child pornography, Schmid said he deleted the files.

He saidin a rushhe later used it, believing it had been wiped, for his own documents.

Schmidcouldn't account for the otherchild pornography images on his hard drive, but saidall three boys had access to it and they weren't always supervised.

Nor did he explainhow other illegal images ended up on an older phone he kept downstairs.

In his account, the photos of one of the underage boys naked in the bathroom were from a video he filmed of the boy blowing bubbles.

Schmid said the reason his browsing data included searches for keywords like"young teen boys" was because he was looking for websites with young-looking participantsbut who were actually of age.

During her cross-examination, Kapend drilled down on those search results, with Schmid admitting he's attracted to males who look younger than 19.

"That's what I'm looking for, but I'm doing it in a way that's legal," Schmid told her. "These sites are all legal websites."

'I did nothing with those two boys'

Under fire by the Crown, Schmidspoke of a possible set-up by the family of the third boy, but didn't explain why certain files appeared on his computer before meeting the child.

Kapendasked Schmid ifthe close relationship he'd fostered with one of the boys constituted a conflict of interest, given he was anair cadet captain.

She also asked whether he was familiar with the term "grooming."Schmid said he wasn't.

"I did nothing with those two boys," Schmidtestified atthe end of his cross-examination.

Schmid has been heldin custodyfor the past27 months since his arrest.

A spokesperson for the Canadian Armed Forces told CBC News that Schmid was released from its reserves force in January 2023.