RCMP officer acquitted of accessing child porn given absolute discharge for breach conviction
Const. Michael Scoretz found guilty of violating a release condition, sentenced to least severe punishment available by law
The RCMP officer acquitted of child pornography after showing a girlfriend an image of a naked and sexualized little girl he accessed on the dark web was convicted of a breach this month, sentenced to an absolute discharge.
Const. Michael Scoretz was acquitted on May 19, 2025, of two counts of accessing child pornography after provincial court Judge Peter Whyte found Scoretz's behaviour suspicious but not something he could convict him on reaching the bar of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
One of Scoretz's two charges was from May 10, 2022 in Chilliwack when he was with a girlfriend and showed her the pornographic image after a conversation about the dark web, something he has some expertise in for investigative reasons. The second was from Aug. 31, 2022, in Burnaby, a charge that was never explained in court and was later dropped.
While out on bail in advance of trial, Scoretz was then twice charged with breaches of his release conditions from allegations from his property on Bowen Island on April 15 and May 24, 2023. One involved accessing social media against release conditions, the other contacting another woman.
The initial incident that led to the acquittal in March 2025 occurred in May 2022 when the new couple were lying in bed discussing future plans. His girlfriend, Ann Fletcher, asked Scoretz, an officer who worked on the RCMP’s Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET), what he could tell her about the dark web. Scoretz told her a little about its history, how it was created by the U.S. Navy to protect American intelligence online.
He then said, "maybe it's easier if I just show you," Fletcher recounted on the witness stand on March 25, 2025. Scoretz downloaded Tor, the software needed to access the dark web to use so-called "onion routing" to stay anonymous online.
He landed on a chat forum, scrolled up collecting links, copy-and-pasting on a separate screen then he said: "Now we wait. You have to wait to be invited in."
Fletcher didn't know what he was accessing, but what appeared shocked her. It was a naked pre-pubescent girl with blonde hair who, based on the graphic description Fletcher provided, was clearly the victim of a sexual assault.
In shock about what she had witnessed, then terrified by the notion of reporting an RCMP officer to the RCMP, she didn't file a complaint right away. Eventually she did. Scoretz was investigated and charged.
An RCMP expert witness explained that you can’t accidentally stumble into child pornography on the dark web. You have to take very specific steps in order to access websites, which Scoretz did.
“You very much need to research the type of information you are looking for,” he explained. “If you know what types of images you want to go to see, you use that .onion site and use it like a web browser.”
Still, it was one image that Fletcher saw for as little as one second. The unusual and technical aspects of the dark web meant that even with expert testimony, Judge Whyte had some question about Scoretz's intention when he accessed the image, so he landed on reasonable doubt and an acquittal.
That ended the substantive matter, but the breach charges went to trial on Aug. 7 in provincial court in Chilliwack. He was acquitted on the April 15, 2023, breach charged, but found guilty of the May 24, 2023 breach. His sentence was an absolute discharge, the least severe sentence possible where a judge registers a finding of guilt but there is no conviction, no probation or other conditions, and the case is closed.
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Paul J. Henderson
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