First guilty plea entered in Vancouver child sex sting that resulted in 47 arrests
Credit to Author: Susan Lazaruk| Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2019 23:40:47 +0000
More than a year after Vancouver police launched an online child sex sting that led to more than 40 arrests, one of the men charged has pleaded guilty.
Mario Celo Amistad, 50, pleaded guilty to the charge of communicating for the sexual services of a child in Vancouver provincial court and will be sentenced next year, according to court documents.
The minimum sentence is six months for a first offence and the maximum sentence is 10 years.
The six other men who have been charged in the case have pleaded not guilty: retired Catholic school teacher Nicholas Dais, 58; Kenneth Clement, 58, a former Vision Vancouver school trustee for the Vancouver board; Mehran Arefi, 52; Jun Jie He, 36; Jim Malmros, 45; and Donald Hugh Schroeder, 62.
They are scheduled to be back in court on various dates between October and May for trial, and in Schroeder’s case, a preliminary hearing (to determine if there is enough evidence to proceed to trial).
Vancouver police have said they will forward charge approval requests over the next several months to the Crown for the 40 other men arrested in the sting that began in June 2018 and ended in November.
Earlier this year, a Vancouver police spokesman said investigators were still working with Crown counsel to disclose all evidence and expected it to be done this summer and completed by fall.
The police have said there have been no further charges so far because the process takes time and investigators need to be “meticulous and detail-oriented” in preparing charge recommendations.
The B.C. Prosecution Service approves charges recommended by police based on their likelihood of succeeding at trial, among other factors.
A request on Tuesday to the police department for an updated status on the outstanding charges was not answered.
The 47 men were arrested on nine different dates between June and November as part of an online sting in which the suspects believed they were arranging sexual services with a teen girl between 15 and 17. They instead were met by a police officer when they showed up to meet with her.