this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2025
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A B.C. man convicted on child pornography charges has been allowed to serve his sentence in the community, in part because of the “relatively modest” size of his collection, a judge has ruled.

“Although there is no strict mathematical relationship between the size of the collection and the length (or indeed type) of sentence, the size of a collection has often been held to be an aggravating factor,” Tam wrote.

Despite pleading guilty to the charges, Keenan maintained that he is not sexually attracted to children, and had only stumbled upon the child pornography in 2017 while “searching for other images such as sunsets and beaches,” according to the decision.

Keenan said was appalled by what he found, and decided to start a Tumblr blog to lure out paedophiles so he could report them to the site’s moderators in a kind of “undercover sting.”

The judge was not convinced.

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[–] KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 54 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Despite pleading guilty to the charges, Keenan maintained that he is not sexually attracted to children, and had only stumbled upon the child pornography in 2017 while “searching for other images such as sunsets and beaches,” according to the decision.

He stumbled upon them in 2017 while searching for other innocuous images and just decided to save them and not delete them for 8 years. Seems like completely normal, well-adjusted behavior.

[–] vaguerant@fedia.io 22 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Actually reading the link, he was arrested in 2018. It's not very exculpatory to say "His CSAM collection wasn't eight years old, it was only one year old," but it's true I guess.

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 2 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Keep reading, he started a blog with them to "attract and report pedos"

[–] vaguerant@fedia.io 3 points 22 hours ago

I did read it. The Tumblr blog is what was reported to police, leading to his arrest in 2018, roughly a year after the offending began. The original commenter was under the mistaken impression that his offenses went undetected until 2025, or roughly eight years. I corrected a misunderstanding about years.

[–] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago

This may in fact not be completely outside of the realm of possibility for someone who has no idea how to actually operate his computer, which is most people. The notion that things can be deleted, not to mention when they should be deleted or when they should not be deleted, and the fact that on most modern systems they aren't actually deleted when you hit "delete" and instead go to some manner of purgatory elsewhere on your drive where they're still accessible in full (recycle bin/trash) regularly eludes the majority of computer users.

The problem is, the defendant's excuse could be explained by him being a moron from multiple avenues, so we'll never know if he's inept (as in can't delete files) or inept (as in so stupid he things everyone else is as stupid as he is in order to believe his dumb excuse).

[–] Nougat@fedia.io 37 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I mean, who hasn't accidentally downloaded CSAM when searching for "sunsets and beaches", right?

[–] LodeMike 12 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

The person pled guilty to distributing it too. The children were as young as 9.

Untill I saw this I was wondering if we were talking 17 year old girls or something. I was trying to have some optimism that the guy thought they were legal or something. But 9. There is no mistaking that. And who even downloads the pictures they find on the web. Total BS.

[–] TranscendentalEmpire 40 points 1 day ago

“relatively modest” size of his collection, a judge has ruled.

Compared too?

It really reads like a pedo giving out a sick burn to another pedo.....your collection isn't even big enough to earn jail time. What is this amateur hour?

[–] HikingVet@lemmy.ca 38 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Investigate that judge. Also, dude needs to be kept away from children.

[–] WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

A “relatively modest” collection of child porn is zero. This alone should be grounds to seize and search all of the judges devices.

[–] Chozo@fedia.io 22 points 1 day ago

Somebody check the judge's hard drive.

[–] kbal@fedia.io 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

"Judge not convinced by flimsy excuse" doesn't really strike me as worthy of the Onion.

[–] huppakee@feddit.nl 6 points 1 day ago

The defendants story makes up for it

[–] unabart@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

Got another “Dear Zachary” brewing up north!

[–] MyOpinion 2 points 1 day ago