By PAUL TURENNE, SUN MEDIAThe son of a former Winnipeg city councillor says the 30-month jail term he received for luring teenage girls to a hotel room and taking nude photos of them while they performed sexual acts on him is too long.
Brock Golden, son of former St. Vital councillor and mayoral
candidate Al Golden, was previously sentenced to 30 months in jail for Internet luring and producing child pornography.
On Thursday the Manitoba Court of Appeal, the province's
highest court, heard his argument that the sentence is much longer than those imposed on other people convicted of similar crimes and should be reduced.
Golden was arrested in May 2005 after he paid a 14-year-old girl and her 15-year-old cousin $1,000 to model nude for him and perform sexual favours in a city hotel room.
A third 14-year-old girl was also present in the hotel room but did not participate in the sexual activity.
Golden communicated online several times with the girls before luring them out of their homes at 4 a.m. to a Pembina Highway hotel.
Sex session
Golden and one of the girls took more than 220 pictures of the
sex session on his digital camera. He told the girls the pictures would be sent to "a group of frat boys" at a Texas university.
Police later recovered the pictures on Golden's home computer. Golden's lawyer told court Thursday that the 30-month sentence is excessive given that similar cases resulted in lesser sentences,
that the girls knew what was going on and never filed victim impact
statements, that Golden admitted his crimes immediately upon his arrest and that media attention of the case has acted as a deterring factor for Golden.
The Appeal Court will present a written judgment at a later date.
