Computer seized from Ekati in child porn investigation
Laptop taken as evidence after Dominion Diamond employee arrested last spring in nationwide sweep
Cody Punter
Northern News Services
Published Friday, January 9, 2015
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A computer believed to contain child pornography was seized from the Ekati diamond mine as part of an investigation into a Dominion Diamond Corporation employee who was charged with making and distributing child porn last spring, according to publicly available police documents.
Gary Stephen Miller, 62, was arrested and charged with making, accessing, possessing and making available child pornography in May 2014 as part of a nationwide investigation into child pornography that involved more than 40 police agencies and included nearly 170 separate investigations.
According to unsealed warrants used to obtain forensic evidence in the case against the Yellowknife man, on May 22, Miller, who was working at Ekati at the time, was flown to Yellowknife from the mine and turned over to police by the Dominion Diamond Corporation in compliance with a warrant for his arrest.
As per the warrant, the company also handed over Miller's laptop and a 500 gigabyte external hard-drive from the Ekati mine site to police, who believed they contained files depicting child pornography.
Representatives from Dominion Diamond Corporation did not return phone calls seeking comment by press time.
The warrant was issued after investigators suspected an Internet Protocol (IP) address linked to Miller was being used to share pornographic images of children. According to the warrant, between May 2 and May 9 an RCMP officer based in Toronto downloaded seven files believed to contain child pornography from the peer to peer Ares file sharing site. The site is one of several known by police to be commonly used for the dissemination of sexual images and videos involving minors.
The warrant states the officer found six of the seven files contained graphic videos and images with girls as young as six and as old as 13, exposing themselves and performing sexual acts with adult men.
Upon determining that the images contained pornographic images involving children, the investigation was handed over to Detective Sgt. Darren Parisien with the Saskatoon Police Service, who often conducts child pornography investigations in collaboration with the RCMP.
Parisien proceeded to submit a law enforcement request to Internet service provider Northwestel to obtain the customer name and address associated with the IP address that was traced to the file sharing account. Upon receiving that information he determined the account linked to the address was under Miller's name.
In order to verify the images were coming from Miller's IP address, the warrant states Parisien drove past his house and tried to access wireless networks in the area. His investigation concluded there were no insecure wireless networks near the residence and he proceeded to file the warrant.
On May 21, policed executed a search at Miller's home and seized five hard drives, four SD cards, two computer towers, and a laptop, as evidence among other items.
The following day, he was arrested and charged.
On Tuesday, Miller's lawyer Peter Harte appeared on his behalf in territorial court to speak to the charges. In a brief statement, he told the court investigators still needed time to complete the forensic analysis of the approximately 1.5 million images contained on hard drives and computers seized by the RCMP.
Harte anticipated the analysis would be complete by Feb. 3.
Miller is back in Yellowknife after previously being allowed to leave the territory to visit family and seek counselling, according to Crown prosecutor Kindra Lakusta.
As he is now residing in the territory, Harte requested his client's bail be reduced from $10,000 to $1,000. Territorial court deputy judge Brian Bruser approved the request.
Miller has yet to enter a plea on the charges.
