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 Daniel Walter Gyselinck, who starred in Barrie's Santa Claus parade, was arrested after police found thousands of child pornography images on his computer. (QMI Agency file photo) |
BARRIE, Ont. - For the past two years, Daniel Walter Gyselinck played Santa in Barrie's Christmas parade, with a little pot belly, long white hair and a white beard, waving to hundreds of children from his glittering sleigh as he handed out treats.
On Wednesday, he stood in handcuffs beside his lawyer in a Barrie courtroom and quietly said "guilty" to possession of 90,000 images of child porn as well as more than 1,000 video clips of child porn.
Gyselinck, 59, also pleaded guilty to making the images available to the public and to downloading the images and movies from his computer on to personal CDs and DVDs.
Court heard police came to his apartment door with a search warrant last June where they found the material as well as an unusual collection of festive decorations, even though it was the middle of June.
A police video tape played in court showed Gyselinck's apartment shelves cluttered with Christmas trinkets, hundreds of stuffed toys, gingerbread houses, a Christmas tree and a Santa suit.
"When I sit at my computer, I slip into this dark side," Gyselinck told police. "I don't know why I do it."
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Court heard he also told police how easy it was to download any type of child porn he wanted off of Limewire.
"Why doesn't the government stop making it so easily available?" he asked police.
In court, police also played a sampling of the thousands of images and videos that were seized.
Several show clips of adult men raping a small child. One clip shows a small child playing in a bubble bath when suddenly a quiet, muffled male voice is heard in the background asking the child to stand up in the tub and display her genitals.
The unknowing child appears to happily obey, each time saying "cheese" with a happy smile as she posses.
Gyselinck will be sentenced May 21.