An Oregon man has been sentenced to 20 years in a U.S. federal prison for sexually exploiting three British Columbia children.
RCMP say 37-year-old Kevin McCarty of Happy Valley, Ore., used social media to stalk the children online, then coerced them into making and sharing sexually explicit photos and videos of themselves.
Police say he threatened to share the images with their friends and family unless they sent more, and in two instances he told the victims they should kill themselves if they did not comply.
RCMP in the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island received the first complaint in May 2021 about a child being sexually exploited online, which police say led them to McCarty, who was later connected to cases in two other B.C. municipalities.
Police say they notified U.S. Homeland Security Investigations, which took conduct of the case.
Police say an Oregon court sentenced McCarty earlier this month to 20 years in prison and supervised released in the United States after that.
Sgt. Dave Knight of the Surrey RCMP Internet Child Exploitation Unit says the conviction and sentence proves that online predators cannot find anonymity by committing their crimes across international borders.
"Our investigators recognize the value in building strong working relationships with international partner agencies," he said in a news release issued Thursday. "This enables us to successfully target offenders as we work toward the common goal of keeping our children safe from online exploitation."
Surrey RCMP implemented the first detachment-level dedicated internet child exploitation unit in 2020. It now has seven full-time investigators.
