Prosecutors in Amanda Todd 'sextortion' trial to wrap up case next week

Crown Counsel prosecuting Dutch citizen Aydin Coban in connection with the cyberbullying of Port Coquitlam student Amanda Todd said it plans to call no more witnesses.

In the seventh week of the trial at BC Supreme Court in New Westminster, lead prosecutor Louise Kenworthy told Justice Martha Devlin and the jury the Crown intends to close its case next Tuesday.

Kenworthy made the statement after Cpl. Jim Devine, the lead investigator handling the Todd file at Coquitlam RCMP, finished his testimony Tuesday.

Devine told the court he reviewed dozens of forensic images and videos presented to him by Sgt. Keith Hack, a B.C. RCMP digital forensic officer who took the stand last week.

In cross-examination under defence counsel Joe Saulnier, Devine said he saw Coban’s name listed on seized devices from the Netherlands, referenced on bank documents, emails and rental agreements.

Meanwhile, Saulnier also submitted Todd’s Facebook records as part of the evidence.

In an admissions of fact — agreed to by defence counsel and Coban — prosecutor Heather Guinn read last week that RCMP inspected a number of electronic devices from the Todd family, including technology Todd had used before her death in October 2012.

These included an Apple iPhone 4; a Hitachi hard drive (removed from a Toshiba laptop); a Seagate 1 hard drive (removed from her father’s computer tower); a Toshiba hard drive (from her father’s laptop); and a Maxtor hard drive (taken from her father’s computer tower).

On Oct. 10, 2013 — a year after Todd died — the U.S. Department of Homeland Security obtained a search warrant for Facebook account records, which were supplied by the social media company five days later.

The admissions statement, which was submitted as evidence, also indicates the DHS forwarded those records to the RCMP via an online secure file transfer system, of which Devine downloaded on Nov. 26, 2013; the Facebook records show Todd’s Facebook activity from Dec. 1, 2010, to Oct. 11, 2013.

Devine also received a CD-ROM on July 14, 2016, containing more Facebook records, after the Department of Justice Canada International Assistance Group worked with the FBI to obtain a search warrant, the admissions statement reads.

In her opening address, Kenworthy said the Crown will prove that Coban was behind 22 fake accounts in “a persistent campaign of online sextortion” against Todd.

Coban has pleaded not guilty to: extortion, importing and distributing child pornography, possession of child pornography, communicating with the intent to lure a child, and criminal harassment.

None of the allegations is proven in court. The trial continues.