The trial of a Dutch man accused of harassing and extorting B.C. teen Amanda Todd before she took her own life appears to be entering its final phase.
Crown prosecutors informed the 12-member jury Tuesday that they had no more witnesses to call.
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The jury is slated to be recalled next Tuesday for the trial’s final phase. The trial to date has lasted nearly a month and a half.
Aydin Coban, a 44-year-old citizen of the Netherlands, has pleaded not guilty to five charges including possession of child pornography, communication with a young person to commit a sexual offence and criminal harassment.
Prosecutors allege he used 22 different social media accounts to mount a “persistent campaign of online sextortion,” against Todd between 2009 and 2012.
The Crown alleges he used topless images of her he had acquired to try and blackmail her into performing pornographic webcam shows, and at points followed through on sending those images to family, friends and Todd’s school community.
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Jurors have heard from numerous witnesses both from the Netherlands and Canada.
Todd’s mother, Carol, described how her heart “skipped a beat” when she received one of the pornographic messages about her daughter, and told the jury about Amanda’s worsening mental health and anxiety as the episodes dragged on and followed her from school to school.
The jury has heard from Dutch police, who described a surveillance operation targeting Coban that included installing surveillance equipment in his rental cabin and keylogging software on his computer prior to his arrest in January, 2014.
Dutch officers testified about software that could be used by hackers found on his laptop, and about finding the name “Amanda Todd” on a seized hard drive.
No videos of Amanda Todd were ever located on devices seized from Coban.
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Jurors heard from a cybercrime and Facebook expert who unpacked connections between some of the accounts used to harass the teen.
The court has also heard from Canadian police who dealt with Todd and her family amid repeated harassment incidents, and how the teen appeared reticent to curb her online activities, despite the incidents.
Throughout the trial, Coban’s lawyer, Joseph Saulnier, has maintained that there is no direct evidence linking Coban to the messages sent to Todd.
The case hinges on the identity of the online extortionist, and Saulnier told media at the start of the trial that while there is no question Todd was the victim of crimes, the matter at trial is who was responsible for the messages, which must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
Todd took her own life in October, 2012 at age 15.
Not long before her death in 2012, she posted a video to YouTube chronicling her ordeal, which gained worldwide attention and became a rallying cry against cyberbullying.
In the video, Todd silently held up a series of flashcards describing the torment she endured.
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