TABER — A senior civilian police official in southern Alberta has been charged with accessing child pornography and attempting to lure a girl on the Internet.
Members of Alberta’s Internet Child Exploitation unit and the Taber Police Service say they arrested Curtis David Paradee on Tuesday.
Paradee, 42, was chairman of the Taber Police Commission and an executive with the Alberta Association of Police Governance.
Paradee resigned voluntarily from the commission just hours after he was arrested and charged, said Henk DeVlieger, vice chairman of the commission.
“It’s pretty sad,” he said. “I’m still in shock, myself.”
Police say the U.S. Department of Homeland Security alerted Canadian authorities last year that a girl from the United States was allegedly involved in a cyber-relationship.
That investigation eventually led to the town of Taber, Alta., a peaceful farming community of 7,500 about 270 km southeast of Calgary.
“There’s a lot of shock here. I mean Mr. Paradee has been very active in the community, very active with the police service down here with the commission, with council. It is a shock,” said Staff Sgt. Steve Lorne, a spokesman for Alberta’s ICE Unit.
“The ripple effect of this — it’s pretty devastating to his family and his friends.”
Police seized computers and computer-related hardware from Paradee’s home on Tuesday and they are being examined by computer experts.
“We will be doing complete forensics on those. We have a human factor here. We’re looking for other live victims and additional evidence as far as possible additional charges as well,” said Lorne.
“Do we identify more victims? Is this the only victim? This is horrific images of children being sexually abused. These are crime scenes.”
The offences are alleged to have occurred between July and October 2010.
Paradee is charged with communicating via computer with a person under 18 for the purpose of committing an offence, communicating via a computer with a person under 16 for the purpose of committing an offence, inviting a person under the age of 16 to touch and accessing child pornography.
He was being held in custody and is to appear in Taber court June 21.
Taber Mayor Ray Bryant said the charges faced by Paradee are serious and praised the efforts of police.
“We support our police service and their efforts in ensuring public safety,” Bryant said in a release. “We also want the families involved to know that they are in our thoughts.”
— By Bill Graveland in Calgary; With files from the Lethbridge Herald