School aide, magician jailed five years for making, possessing child-porn

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This article was published 12/10/2017 (2974 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A part-time magician and former school educational assistant has been sentenced to five years in prison for creating and possessing child pornography with images and video of unsuspecting local kids.

Provincial court Judge Sid Lerner said Daniel Kamenicky, 40, had to be imprisoned to deter others.

“People who set about to access and collect pornography victimizing children must be made aware that the courts do not see this as a minor or a victimless crime,” Lerner said while imposing the sentence Thursday.

“It is a reprehensible crime and must be dealt with severely for the protection of society as a whole and of its most vulnerable members, our children.”

Kamenicky earlier pleaded guilty to possessing and making child pornography between June and August 2016.

Kamenicky was arrested last August by Winnipeg police.

Lerner noted that Kamenicky — known as Dan the Magic Man when he entertained at parties and charitable events — created pornographic videos and photos by secretly putting cameras under young girls’ dresses.

Many of the girls were photographed on school playgrounds at the elementary schools he worked at.

“Each image and video possessed by the accused constitutes complicity in, and affirmation of, the degradation and devastation of the children depicted in this material,” the judge said.

“Similarly, possession of child pornography constitutes complicity in the sexual degradation of all other children who become candidates for similar treatment because the market for this depravity has once again been affirmed.”

Kamenicky was credited for the time he’s served since his arrest in August 2016, reducing the length of the sentence imposed by Lerner Thursday.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca