A B.C. provincial court judge sentenced Burnaby man Anwer Jelassi to just under three and a half years in jail for online sextortion offences involving teen victims across Canada.
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Anwer Jelassi, a Burnaby man who pleaded guilty to the online sextortion of multiple teenage victims across Canada, was sentenced to just under three and a half years in jail on Oct. 14, his 22nd birthday.
At the sentencing hearing in Vancouver provincial court, B.C. provincial court judge Jennifer Oulton accepted a joint sentencing submission from Crown and defence counsel.
The court heard Jelassi’s online communications with teen girls he demanded money from were “insulting, demeaning and hostile.”
Court records described offences spanning multiple years, including extorting eight victims between Oct. 14 and Nov. 8, 2022, and extorting a ninth victim from Dec. 22 to 25, 2023.
Jelassi also admitted to secretly recording sexual activity (voyeurism) on Dec. 22, 2023, distributing child pornography from Oct. 17 to 30, 2022, and publishing intimate images without consent from Oct. 14, 2022 to Jan. 23, 2023.
The sentencing also followed a breach admitted by Jelassi on Dec. 22, 2023, when he used a device to communicate with someone under 18 contrary to his release conditions.
Crown prosecutor Margaret Mackie said Jelassi was 18 when the offences began in October 2022.
The court heard a cross-country investigation led by Burnaby RCMP’s Child Abuse and Sexual Offences Unit identified Jelassi as the suspect, and police said he was arrested in January 2023 after a search warrant at his family’s home in Burnaby, where a phone, laptop and USB were seized.
Mackie told the court Jelassi was arrested again in September 2023 and released ahead of a May 2024 court date, and that in March 2024 he was arrested a third time and charged with two breaches before being released with conditions.
Oulton said Jelassi’s persistence of criminal behaviour, including after three arrests and being bound by police undertakings, was an aggravating factor, along with the number of victims and their age, noting eight were under 18.
The judge said Jelassi pretended to be a concerned parent and contacted victims’ schools with false claims before seeking their expulsion.
Oulton found mitigating factors including Jelassi’s guilty pleas, lack of a criminal record and young age, and the defence said Jelassi experienced culture shock after arriving in Canada from Tunisia and settling permanently in Vancouver at age 15.
The court ordered Jelassi to remain on the sex offender registry for 20 years, or until he is 42, and said the forfeiture order included a seized laptop and two cell phones.
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