A Dutchman accused of tormenting British Columbia teenager Amanda Todd via online threats has been found guilty of all charges against him in the case, a jury heard on Saturday.
Aydin Coban was charged with extortion, harassment, communicating with a youth to commit a sexual offense and possession and distribution of child pornography. The jury presiding over his trial in the Supreme Court of British Columbia returned its unanimous verdict a day after deliberations began.
Todd was 15 when she took her own life in 2012 after posting a video describing being tormented by an online stalker.
The harrowing tale, seen by millions of viewers since her death, saw her use flash cards to describe the torments of her anonymous cyberbully. His plea and death brought the issue of online harassment and cyberbullying into the spotlight.
At the start of the trial in June, Coban pleaded not guilty to all charges against him. He has not been charged in connection with Todd’s death.
Crown attorney Louise Kenworthy told the jury in her closing arguments that two hard drives seized from the Dutchman’s home had links to Amanda Todd, including a deleted bookmark of child pornography depicting the girl.
At the start of the trial, she said Todd had been the victim of a persistent online “sextortion” campaign for three years before his death.
An RCMP officer testified that he found “real conversation fragments” between Todd and several of the online aliases used to harass her on a device seized from Coban’s home.
After gathering the evidence in closing arguments, Kenworthy said the only conclusion the jury could draw was that Coban was guilty.
His defense did not call any witnesses in the case, and his attorney Joseph Saulnier told the jury in closing arguments that fragments of data cited by police during the trial could not link Coban to extortion or harassment of Todd.
A Dutch court approved Coban’s extradition to Canada after his trial there on similar allegations.
Coban was sentenced to almost 11 years in prison after a trial in Amsterdam in 2017 for cyberbullying dozens of young girls and gay men.
He was found guilty of internet fraud and blackmail and sentenced to a maximum sentence of 10 years and eight months, for what Dutch judicial authorities described as the “devastating consequences of his behavior” on the lives of his victims.
This court heard that Coban posed as a boy or a girl and persuaded his victims to perform sex acts in front of a webcam, then posted the footage online or blackmailed them into threatening to do so. He was accused of abusing 34 girls and five gay men, behavior the court called “astonishing”. In some cases, the abuses have lasted for years.
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on August 6, 2022.
– With files from the Associated Press
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