Mark Lehtonen, who was previously convicted on child pornography charges, pleaded guilty to breaching a prohibition order requiring him to use his real name in online communication and being in possession of digital camera

THUNDER BAY — A man with several convictions relating to child pornography has been sentenced to eight months in custody for breaching a prohibition and release order for a third time.

Mark Philip Lehtonen, 39, appeared before Justice Chantal Brochu in a Thunder Bay Courtroom on Friday where he pleaded guilty to one count of breaching a prohibition order requiring him to use his real name in any online communications and one count of failing to comply with a release order prohibiting him from possessing any device capable of taking digital photographs.

“It seems as though he is not learning his lesson,” Brochu said.

According to an agreed statement of facts, in August 2021 the Thunder Bay Police Service was contacted by a woman advising that she had been communicating online with an individual she later learned was Lehtonen.

Lehtonen had been using several social media accounts, a dating website, and email addresses with pseudonyms instead of his real name.

The investigators recognized Lehtonen from his profile picture associated with the accounts and he was charged in September 2021.   

The second failure to comply charge in December 2022 resulted from an investigation by the Thunder Bay Police Service after officers were contacted by the John Howard Society.

A bail case manager at the John Howard Society informed officers that a digital camera and several memory cards were located in Lehtonen’s room. Because he was under a release order not to possess any device capable of taking digital photographs, Lehtonen was placed under arrest and charged.

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