Former cadet captain says he found USB drive loaded with child porn on the ground
WARNING: This story contains details of alleged sexual abuse that some readers may find disturbing.
A former air cadet captain has denied touching two young boys who slept over at his house regularly and claimed he’d found a USB drive containing thousands of deleted child pornography images lying on the ground.
At the start of his trial in mid-September, Adrian Schmid, 49, pleaded not guilty to eight charges.
They include two counts of sexual interference, two counts of invitation to sexual touching and one count of making sexually explicit material available to a person under 16. He’s also facing one count each of making, accessing and possessing child pornography.
The offences are alleged to have occurred between August 2019 and June 2022.
The allegations involve three children, two of whom are brothers. The identities of the witnesses and youths involved are protected under a publication ban.
Schmid’s trial has lasted roughly three weeks. It was expected to wrap up by the end of this month, but closing submissions have now been pushed back to Oct. 10.
Family grew to trust Schmid
Schmid sat silently taking notes at a small table through most of the judge-alone trial, which started with Justice Pierre Roger hearing testimony from the father of one of the complainants.
The man, who also cannot be identified, described how Schmid grew closer to his family in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A person walks toward the main entrance of the Ottawa Courthouse on Elgin Street in September 2022.
Schmid’s trial has been taking place at the Ottawa Courthouse on Elgin Street, seen here in September 2022. (Matthew Kupfer/CBC)
“Adrian was a single party of one, so during COVID we included him in our group,” the father testified in mid-September.
The man described how Schmid gained the family’s trust and would regularly host two of his sons for sleepovers at his house.
The man grew to consider Schmid a close friend, and said he and another son helped him renovate his house. On Schmid’s birthday, the family baked him a cake and delivered it to his door.
“We trusted him more because he was a member of the cadets — he was a member of the military,” the father said. “I guess we assumed that he had a higher purpose, so he’s more responsible,” the man testified, describing his family as “very trusting to begin with.”
Boy says he was 13 when abuse began
The man told the court his two boys seemed to enjoy going for sleepovers and would ask to go, at least at first.
But after the older boy came forward with allegations of horrific abuse by Schmid, police asked the father to identify photos of his youngest son standing naked in the bathtub the man had helped install.
The father of one of the boys was asked by police to look at photos he identified in court as being of his youngest son, standing naked in the bathtub he had helped install.
A photo of a bathroom entered as evidence in the trial. Court heard that police had asked the boys’ father to identify photos of his youngest son standing naked in the tub. (Scan of court exhibit)
The court also heard from the older of the two brothers, who was 13 when the alleged abuse began, and whose statement to police was played during the trial.
The youth said Schmid would start by touching his lap and penis before moving his hand underneath his clothes.
Sometimes gripping the hand of a family member next to him, the youth testified that Schmid would first instruct him to masturbate in front of him, then he would masturbate the youth.
The youth identified sex toys that he said Schmid used on him, and said Schmid would show him pornography involving both teens and grown men. He also described incidents of penetrative anal intercourse and oral sex.
The youth alleged Schmid said on at least one occasion, “Remember, I’m teaching you.” He told police Schmid also warned him not to tell anyone or he’d come to regret it.
Crown lawyer Aquilas Kapend also presented text messages between Schmid and the youth from October 2021 involving a marker — messages that, the youth testified, led him to believe Schmid wanted him to insert the writing utensil into his own anus.
“Try going almost all the way in,” Schmid texted. “Go slow and you should feel a second set of muscles. Push past those and angle towards you [sic] stomach. You could also use your middle finger.”
In another text exchange months later, Schmid appears concerned about their messages.
“We need to come up with a password or phrase so that if you text me like last night I will know it’s you and not someone using your phone,” he wrote.
Questioned under cross-examination
During cross-examination by defence lawyer Bruce Engel, the youth testified he couldn’t remember many of the details of what had transpired, especially during their early alleged encounters.
The youth told court he didn’t think his younger brother had been subjected to the same physical abuse, and was often in bed upstairs when it occurred. But he said a third unrelated boy would sometimes stay over at Schmid’s house.
In a written statement to police, the youth said Schmid instructed him to touch and masturbate the other boy. He testified that while he didn’t want to do these things, he felt he couldn’t disobey.
“I was scared to say no,” the youth said.
During cross-examination, Engel suggested that the early encounters with Schmid had never happened and questioned other details of his story.
Those included timing of both the youth’s statement to police and when the family met with a lawyer, as well as whether the youth knew the other younger boy had made allegations about both him and Schmid.
Several devices were seized from the home of Adrian Schmid. This photo was part of a booklet of images from the investigation and entered as an exhibit. A DVD copy of the movie “The Hangover Part II” is in the background.
Several devices were seized from Schmid’s home. This photo was part of a booklet of images from the investigation and entered as an exhibit. (Scan of court exhibit)
3rd child also testifies
That third child would provide his own testimony, speaking of numerous situations he described as inappropriate and pointing the finger at both Schmid and the first youth.
Only 10 years old at the time of his police statement, the third child said he wondered why Schmid, in one instance, had touched his penis and asked if he was ready for sex.
“His exact words were asking, ‘Was I ready to have that?’ And it made me feel really uncomfortable,'” the boy told police.
In court, he said Schmid watched without intervening as the other underage complainant performed an inappropriate sexual act on him.
Nor did Schmid intervene, he said, when the older boy stripped naked and sat on the couch after being told they would be taking showers.
You’re just twisting this completely out of context, out of proportion – Adrian Schmid, speaking to the Crown
He also recalled an incident where Schmid offered to teach him about condoms.
“I found it kind of strange [that] out of all people in the world that would teach me how to use those kinds of things, it’d be him,” he said.
The lawyers did not explore deeply incidents between the two boys where Schmid wasn’t present.
The Superior Court of Justice also heard from one police officer who testified that more than 11,000 images and 140 videos of child pornography were recovered from a USB drive taken from Schmid’s house.
The files — which showed youths engaging in a wide range of graphic sexual acts — had been deleted, but police were able to recover them after their seizure.
In all, four devices taken from Schmid’s house included files later classified as child pornography.
Schmid denies allegations
Last week, Schmid pushed back against the testimony of the two young boys and said they lied.
He denied any touching took place or that he invited any sexual touching. While he agreed the sex toys were his, Schmid testified he didn’t know how one boy’s DNA wound up on them.
“No idea,” Schmid said, claiming that — while a detective said the toys were seized from under the sink — that’s not where he stored them.
A total of four devices taken from Adrian Schmid’s house included files later classified as child pornography.
Four devices taken from Adrian Schmid’s house included files later classified as child pornography. Some of 49-year-old’s search history results on other devices, as well as his text conversations with one of the youths, also came under scrutiny during the trial. (Scan of court exhibit)
Schmid did recall an incident when one of the boys got naked and sat on the living room couch.
But in his retelling, Schmid instructed the boy to get dressed and later spoke to him about the inappropriate behaviour. He also said he didn’t bring up the incident with his parents because the boy asked him not to.
Schmid said his text about needing a secret code was in response to a shocking text of a sexual nature from the older boy.
Schmid testified that he didn’t believe it was really one of the boys who’d sent it, but after determining it was, he told the boy he wasn’t going to engage.
But Schmid said he believed a code would be good for future use, in case someone else was fooling around with the youth’s phone.
The Crown gave a different reason why Schmid wanted a code: so he wouldn’t get caught texting a minor inappropriately.
As for the text message about the marker, Schmid said it came after a frank conversation he had with the youth and the youth’s father about why someone might explore that part of their body.
The cadet leader told the court he believed himself to be a mentor-like figure and was providing how-to information to the teenager.
But Kapend asked Schmid why he was texting a 15-year-old about these topics at all.
“You’re just twisting this completely out of context, out of proportion,” Schmid said. “It’s the intent of my text messages that you’re twisting.”
Said USB drive was found 15 years ago
Schmid also testified that he’d found the USB drive with more than 11,000 images on the ground outside roughly 15 years ago.
After plugging it into his computer and realizing it contained child pornography, Schmid said he deleted the files.
This photo, which CBC News has obtained a scan of, was part of a booklet of images from the police investigation and entered as an exhibit. One of the boys who testified against Schmid said his younger brother was not subject to the same physical abuses he claimed, saying his brother was often in bed upstairs.
This photo, which CBC News has obtained a scan of, was part of a booklet of images from the police investigation and entered as an exhibit. One of the boys who testified against Schmid said his younger brother was often in bed upstairs and wasn’t subjected to the same abuse he allegedly faced. (Scan of court exhibit)
He said — in a rush — he later used it, believing it had been wiped, for his own documents.
Schmid couldn’t account for the other child pornography images on his hard drive, but said all three boys had access to it and they weren’t always supervised.
Nor did he explain how other illegal images ended up on an older phone he kept downstairs.
In his account, the photos of one of the underage boys naked in the bathroom were from a video he filmed of the boy blowing bubbles.
Schmid said the reason his browsing data included searches for keywords like “young teen boys” was because he was looking for websites with young-looking participants but who were actually of age.
During her cross-examination, Kapend drilled down on those search results, with Schmid admitting he’s attracted to males who look younger than 19.
“That’s what I’m looking for, but I’m doing it in a way that’s legal,” Schmid told her. “These sites are all legal websites.”
‘I did nothing with those two boys’
Under fire by the Crown, Schmid spoke of a possible set-up by the family of the third boy, but didn’t explain why certain files appeared on his computer before meeting the child.
Kapend asked Schmid if the close relationship he’d fostered with one of the boys constituted a conflict of interest, given he was an air cadet captain.
She also asked whether he was familiar with the term “grooming.” Schmid said he wasn’t.
“I did nothing with those two boys,” Schmid testified at the end of his cross-examination.
Schmid has been held in custody for the past 27 months since his arrest.
A spokesperson for the Canadian Armed Forces told CBC News that Schmid was released from its reserves force in January 2023.
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