A 34-year-old man from Riverview has plead guilty to a child pornography charge following an investigation in the community.

Between January and June 2020, New Brunswick RCMP Internet Child Exploitation Unit (ICE) members conducted an investigation through proactive enforcement into an individual who was found to be exchanging sexually explicit material and having conversations of a sexual nature with a child online.

Police said an investigator was posing as a child on an online messaging platform.

On June 4, 2020, police carried out a search warrant at a home in Riverview as part of the investigation and a then 32-year-old man was arrested at the scene.

On March 22, 2023, Marcello Colasurdo appeared in Moncton Provincial Court and plead guilty to the charge of making available sexually explicit material to someone believed to be under 16.

A previous charge of child luring was stayed by the court.

He is scheduled to return to court on June 2 for sentencing.

“Members of the RCMP’s Internet Child Exploitation Unit regularly conduct proactive enforcement on many different online platforms, including in chat rooms and on social media,” said Cst. Hans Ouellette of the New Brunswick RCMP in an earlier news release related to this case.

“Anyone viewing, sharing, or producing child sexual abuse images can be detected and charged, including through operations where police officers pose as children or like-minded predators to identify and locate these offenders.”