Central Finland District Court has handed a two-year suspended prison sentence to a Jyväskylä man found guilty of grooming and sexually exploiting 22 children over the course of two years, according to the newspaper Keskisuomalainen.
The defendant was also ordered to pay damages to his victims totalling 29,500 euros, cover all legal costs totalling 14,500 euros, and perform 120 hours of community service.
The paper reported that the 41-year-old man was convicted on 13 charges of sexually abusing children, 10 charges of attempting to lure a child into sexual activity, two of disseminating a sexually abusive image and two of possessing an image of a sexually abused child.
The man had previously denied committing nearly all of the crimes during the preliminary investigation, but later admitted to them in court.
The paper added that the court had considered a custodial sentence in the case, but opted for a suspended sentence instead as the defendant had already spent four months in pretrial detention and did not have a previous criminal record.
The court also took into account that no physical contact was involved in any of the crimes.
Looked for victims, found undercover police
The man committed the crimes between 2018 and 2020 by pretending to be a child using the Momio social media platform, which is popular among 7 to 13-year-old children.
A police investigation was launched on the basis of tip-offs from the site’s administrators, and the man was eventually caught in a covert operation conducted by the National Bureau of Investigation.
Undercover police established conversations with the man and he was arrested in October after he turned up to a pre-arranged meeting with what he believed was a child. He was then held in pre-trial detention until mid-December.
After his release, the man continued to operate on the same online service and he was arrested again in April and held in remand until trial.