After sexually assaulting a 5-year-old boy, a Montrealer rose through the ranks of an international pedophile forum to become an administrator. For Jeffrey Howard Hébert, who was declared a long-term offender on Tuesday, cyberpedophilia is a real hard drug.
“He compares his involvement with pedophile websites to drug use: ‘It’s like a guy who tries heroin and six weeks later he’s addicted,'” recounts an evaluation report from dangerousness filed in court.
On Tuesday, Judge Yves Paradis declared Jeffrey Howard Hébert a long-term offender. At the end of his sentence, he will be subject to severe supervision for a period of 10 years. According to the expert report of the National Institute of Forensic Psychiatry Philippe-Pinel, the 42-year-old man presents a “worrying” risk of recidivism above the average. Only 15% of sex offenders score higher than him.
Jeffrey Howard Hébert had previously been sentenced to eight years in prison last December after being found guilty of multiple charges related to child pornography. The Dorval predator had at least 90,000 photos and 1,500 videos of child pornography with particularly shocking details, including scenes of bestiality and scatology.
Also, Jeffrey Howard Hébert had photographed neighborhood children aged 2 to 4 from his residence. More than 700 pictures of these children, naked, were found in his home among a mountain of child pornography. Besides, the seized files may only be the tip of the iceberg, since his computers were encrypted.
The sexual predator was also a figurehead on an international pedophile forum on the hidden web (dark web). As a moderator and administrator, he participated in 13,747 posts from 2014, giving advice on child sexual exploitation. Over the years, he has risen through the ranks of this community.
“According to him, ‘in high places’ noticed him because he was ‘positive’, ‘articulate’, ‘welcoming’ etc. He would have been invited to become a moderator, which he would have accepted,” the report argues.
Jeffrey Howard Hébert also told the expert that he never had fantasies involving children before 2014. He even hypothesized that a concussion suffered in 2013 may have played a role in his “problem”. A possibility rejected by the expert of the Institute.
Note that in the case of sexual contact with a minor, he was sentenced to 22 months in prison in 2016. Moreover, as a teenager and young adult, Howard Hébert was involved in the scout movement in the 1990s.
Me Amélie Rivard represented the Crown, while Me Clara Daviault defended the accused.
