A 29-year-old man has been found guilty of luring a teenage girl into prostitution, after being betrayed by a damning confession to police… and his own “stupidity.”
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The case dates back to the summer of 2018. The 15-year-old complainant needed money. So she turned to the person from whom she bought drugs: Mathieu Tremblay-Niquet.
The accused “offered to find him clients to have sexual relations with for payment. In exchange, he kept a commission,” we read in a guilty verdict recently handed down at the Roberval courthouse in Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean.
The victim, whose identity is protected by the court, and Tremblay-Niquet then discussed the details of their agreement in writing on social media.
The teenager sent racy photos to the accused, who requested them to woo clients. One of them was sent to a friend of Tremblay-Niquet.
“The two also discuss the transportation of the victim and also on a place to sleep or come after. [La plaignante] eventually stops responding to exchanges because she changes her mind and becomes uncomfortable with the idea of sleeping with clients for money,” reports judge Jean-François Poirier.
Note that their discussions, including the nude photos, were, at some point, disseminated within the victim’s school environment.
Not behind the screen
In court, Mathieu Tremblay-Niquet claimed to have left his computer and cell phone, which do not have a password, lying around while several drug users and “party people” were at his home.
So, it would have been another person who had chatted with the victim and he would have realized it only months later.
“It’s curious, because the conversation took place over several days. So the same person would have had access without his authorization to his device and his Messenger account without him realizing it,” said Judge Poirier.
“To say that this theory is not plausible is an understatement. It is a theory that was built up over the course of the testimony, which is incoherent and far-fetched,” added the magistrate.
Another problem was that Tremblay-Niquet had sat down with the police and confirmed his efforts to have the teenager prostitute herself.
The Quebec resident assures that he “invented everything to the police, telling himself that if he gave them what they wanted, he would be left alone.”
“Lying to clear oneself is one thing. Lying to incriminate oneself without protecting anyone is absurd, to say the least. He offers learned testimony in which he simply says that he was stupid and that he did not realize the extent of the situation,” insists Judge Poirier.
Forrest Gump
The magistrate took the opportunity to quote one of the sayings of Forrest Gump, the iconic character of American cinema played by Tom Hanks.
Mom always said, “Only stupidity is stupid.”
Guilty on three counts, including possession and distribution of child pornography, Mathieu Tremblay-Niquet will be sentenced at a later date.