PORT ALBERNI, B.C. – A popular former member of a Junior A hockey team in British Columbia has been given a three-year conditional discharge for his part in the production and distribution of a pornographic video involving an underage girl.
Harrison Zolnierczyk appeared for sentencing Friday in Port Alberni, B.C. provincial court, before Judge Douglas Cowling. The speedy winger previously had entered guilty pleas for two counts of electronic voyeurism.
On completion of his sentence, Zolnierczyk will be left with no permanent criminal record.
According to Crown counsel Gordon Baines, the victim, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, first went to police on Feb. 5, 2007.
“She told police she believed that she had been recorded while having a consensual sex act with (co-accused) Brad Harding, and that people had viewed it,” Baines told court.
According to the Crown, the video itself was recorded in Harding’s bedroom, at the home of his billet family in November 2006, by a webcam mounted on his computer. The webcam broadcast the images to Zolnierczyk’s computer.
It is believed Zolnierczyk played the video, which had been saved to the secure Photobucket website, for three women sometime in December, 2006. Despite pressure from members of the hockey team, the witnesses – friends of the victim – eventually recounted the incident to RCMP.
On April 5, after an examination of Harding’s personal computer, investigators subsequently uncovered “Harding’s Porn Shoot – Take 1003.”
Zolnierczyk was eventually charged in July.
Citing the victim impact statement, Baines said the young woman has been left devastated by the incident.
“Brad and Harry completely degraded me and humiliated me,” she wrote to the court. “I know that the video has been sent out on MSN Messenger – I don’t know how many people have seen it.”
In September 2007, Zolnierczyk began his first year at Brown University in Rhode Island, on a full hockey scholarship, where he played until local media reports about the case prompted his suspension from the team in February.