Charlottetown man sentenced to 3 years in prison for child porn charges

A Charlottetown man has been sentenced to three years in federal prison after a "significant" collection of images and videos depicting child sex abuse was seized from devices in his home.

Nicholas Connor Warren Long, 20, had previously pleaded guilty to charges of possessing and distributing child pornography. He was sentenced in provincial court on Monday.

According to the agreed statement of facts filed in court, police were first alerted to Long's internet activity in 2023 when an account called creepyboy2288 tried to upload a video of a "prepubescent female" to Instagram to share the video with another user. 

Instagram's parent company Meta detected the criminal content of the video and reported it to the U.S.-based National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. 

Police later tracked the IP address to Long's home in Charlottetown, got a warrant, and seized three cellphones, a laptop computer and a hard drive. Together the devices contained 466 images and 313 videos that were categorized as child pornography. 

Email addresses connected to Long reveal that he also went by the names Nick Bradley and Cole Long.

The Crown wanted the judge to put Long behind bars for four years for his crimes. Long's legal aid defence lawyer asked for two years less a day, a sentence that could be served at the Provincial Correctional Centre in Charlottetown.

However, Chief Provincial Court Judge Jeff Lantz decided on 18 months for each charge — totalling three years.

Lantz spoke for over 20 minutes as he explained his sentencing decision on Monday.

He said that while there was no evidence to suggest any of the children in the videos and images were on P.E.I., and Long viewed the content in the privacy of his own home, the demand for this material was still fuelling the abuse of children elsewhere.

It may be hard for some people to realize that there are victims here. These are real. Child pornography is still child abuse.— Judge Jeff Lantz

"It may be hard for some people to realize that there are victims here. These are real," Lantz told the courtroom. "Child pornography is still child abuse."

Lantz cited the case law he used, noting that the size of the seizure was considered "significant" in comparison to some other cases. He said Long likely would have gotten a longer sentence if he had tried to distribute the images on more than one occasion.

The judge also said the sample of images and videos he was required to see and hear to understand Long's crimes will "haunt" him for a long time.

"Shocking and disturbing, to put it mildly," Lantz said.

Long will also have to forfeit all the devices seized from his mother's home, offer up a sample of his DNA to be placed on file in a national crime database, and be placed on the sex offender registry.