Editor’s note: This story includes testimony about child sexual abuse that readers may find disturbing.
A Copper Cliff man who attempted to arrange an opportunity to sexually abuse two young children alongside their mother has reached a plea agreement in a case involving both the production of child sexual abuse material and bestiality.
Though there were 14 counts on the indictment — including further counts of accessing child pornography, possessing child pornography — charges of bestiality and compelling the commission of bestiality were dropped in exchange for James McGuire, 39, pleading guilty in Superior Court to:
- possession of child pornography from May 2, 2019, to Feb. 27, 2021;
- making child pornography from Oct. 1, 2020, to March 7, 2021;
- communicating for the purpose of making arrangements involving minors from Sept. 11, 2019, to Feb. 21, 2021; and
- making child pornography from Sept. 11, 2019, to Feb. 21, 2021.
Through an agreed statement of facts, assistant Crown attorney Matthew Caputo told the court that on March 5, 2021, a woman contacted Greater Sudbury Police after she saw McGuire watching what she believed to be child pornography on a computer in his home.
In the agreed statement of facts, it also states McGuire had talked to a woman for about two minutes in which the conversation involved describing sexual activities with the woman’s daughter, who was a child.
Police exercised a search warrant at McGuire’s home on March 6, 2021, seizing several electronic devices and McGuire’s cellphone.
The court was told child sexual abuse material (a.k.a. child pornography) is rated on a scale of one to five, with five being the highest level of severity in terms of the abuse depicted.
A video and seven images found on McGuire’s device were rated at five out of five, the highest possible rating, said the Crown, who was appearing virtually from Sault Ste. Marie.
The children in the images and video were between the ages of zero and four, the statement of facts reads.
McGuire also spoke to a second woman about sexual activities with children.
At McGuire's request, one of the women sent a photograph of her one-year-old daughter’s vulva and the other sent sexualized photographs of her six-year-old niece. The statement said he was also planning to arrange for the two of them to get together and perform sexual acts with her children, who were four to 10 years of age.
Greater Sudbury Police charged McGuire and the two women.
McGuire’s defence counsel, George Fournier requested a pre-sentence report, so a sentencing date will be set in Superior assignment court on Nov. 19. Caputo told Justice Robbie Gordon that there would be a joint submission on sentencing, and as a result of the plea deal, a trial set for April 28-30, 2025 is unneccesary.
McGuire has been in custody since his arrest.
McGuire was one of four local men arrested in what Greater Sudbury Police described as a 13-month “extensive” investigation by its Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) Unit in 2021 and 2022. He was charged on March 7, 2021, and has been in custody since.
Jenny Lamothe covers court for Sudbury.com