Mom charged with molesting infant, sharing videos

A Manitoba mother is in custody after sharing videos in which she reportedly sexually abused her infant.

The RCMP’s internet child exploitation unit became aware of the videos — which had been shared in direct messages on X, formerly known as Twitter — at about 10:15 a.m. on March 13. An investigation by the Manitoba ICE unit and the RCMP’s national child exploitation crime centre determined the owner of the X account was the woman abusing her infant in the videos, police said.

Mounties said the woman sent the material to a man in the U.S. via a private message that was flagged by the platform and sent to authorities.

Investigators contacted an RCMP detachment, and a 27-year-old woman was arrested at a home shortly after noon that day. There were no children in the home other than the infant, who is under one year of age.

The woman has been charged with sexual assault, incest, possession of child pornography, accessing child pornography and printing/publishing/making child pornography.

Cpl. Gord Olson of the ICE unit said a man in the same community was identified as having the videos, too, and was extorting the woman by threatening to publicly release the material.

“He was using that material to… blackmail the female for further material and some sort of sexual coercion… looking to have sex with her,” Olson said Tuesday.

A 31-year-old man was arrested and charged with possessing child pornography, accessing child pornography and extorting without a firearm.

Investigators are not clear on how the man ended up with the material he used to extort the woman, or the relationship between the two.

“That’s what we’re trying to still determine, whether he was an active participant,” Olson said. “A lot of times, we deal with like-minded individuals.”

A preliminary search of the man’s computer yielded thousands of images and videos of child sexual abuse material.

Mounties are not releasing the child’s gender or the name of the community to protect the identity of the infant. The child is in the care of Child and Family Services, Olson said.

Both people arrested remain in custody, and investigators continued searching the woman’s home Tuesday.

RCMP are working with international law-enforcement partners regarding the individual in the U.S. who was in possession of the material.

fpcity@freepress.mb.ca