Article content Lionel Mark Pilon leaves Halifax provincial court in March after testifying at his trial on five charges involving a 12-year-old Ontario girl he communicated with online in the summer of 2022. Pilon was found guilty Monday on three charges – making sexually explicit material available to someone under the age of 18, internet luring and possessing written material that met the definition of child pornography. Photo by Steve BruceArticle contentPilon explained that when he wrote about waiting around for six years, he was referring to how long he estimated it would take him to get his life in order.Article content“I don’t accept that,” the judge said. “It’s the exact number of years before she’s 18 and is an adult.Article content“He described masturbation to her. He described oral sex to her. He asked about her parents. He talked in detail about his relationship with his wife and children. He just could not, he said, ask about her age.Article content“He tries to suggest that when he would say back to her that she was (12), that he was challenging her. He was not. He was confirming her age.”Article contentDriscoll said the accused created the theory about the persona “to excuse what was happening and justify what he was doing.”Article contentShe said Pilon’s evidence about why he didn’t believe the complainant when she said she was 12 “makes no sense, and I reject it in its entirety.”Article contentArticle contentThe judge said the girl’s evidence was credible and reliable and was corroborated by the hundreds of pages of messages that were exhibited at trial.Article contentThe offences were committed over a span of about eight weeks between July 14 and Sept. 8, 2022. Pilon was arrested by Halifax Regional Police in November 2023 and released on an undertaking with conditions.Article contentAn agreed statement of facts filed at the start of the trial this February says the girl’s mother looked at her daughter’s cellphone Sept. 8, 2022, after noticing the youngster had been on the phone for longer periods of time over the past few months.Article contentThe mother observed messages between her daughter and an individual with the username Genar-Hofoen on a messaging application called Discord. The woman thought the messages were sexual in nature.Article contentWhen she queried her daughter, she was told Genar-Hofoen was a 37-year-old man she had met online while playing Valorant, a tactical shooting game, and that he lived in Halifax and had two kids.Article contentArticle contentThe woman went to Halton Regional Police the next day to report that she had found inappropriate messages on the phone. She gave police a USB containing a download of the Discord messages.Article contentA booklet containing 680 pages of Discord messages and logs of calls was entered into evidence at trial. Pilon admitted he was Genar-Hofoen and did not contest the authenticity or continuity of the contents of the exhibit.Article contentThe girl testified she and Pilon met when they were paired up on Valorant in the summer of 2022. She said she doesn’t know how long they played and chatted on Valorant before they began communicating on Discord in mid-July.Article content“It started as friends,” she said of their online relationship. “It sort of progressed to becoming closer friends, and then we had a romantic relationship.”Article contentShe said she knew Pilon was an adult but wasn’t sure when she learned his exact age. She said he told her that he and his wife were having issues.
Halifax man found guilty of luring 12-year-old Ontario girl into online sexual relationship
