A Grande Prairie man has been sentenced to one year in jail after pleading guilty to possession of child pornography. According to Alberta Justice on June 29th, Curt Backlund was sentenced after entering his plea for the child pornography case back in April.
Backlund was one of 24 people charged in connection to a 2021 province-wide investigation by the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams Internet Child Exploitation Unit.
In April 2021, authorities said the arrests were made after “several referrals from the RCMP National Exploitation Coordination Centre, an organization that works with internet and social media companies to investigate online instances of child sexual exploitation.”
In November of 2021, Stedson McDonald was sentenced to two years in jail after pleading guilty to possession of child pornography, after being arrested in connection to the same investigation.