The man, who stayed in Fort McMurray work camp, loses appeal of his conviction in Alberta Court of Appeal
Warning: Graphic details may be disturbing
Bhushan Prakash Mahajan lost the appeal of his conviction on sexual offences against children. The Alberta Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal on March 20.
The offences were committed between April 2018 and February 2019, when Mahajan was 30 and 31 years old. The complainant was 12 and 13 years of age and the independent witness, a close family friend referred to as a cousin, was seven years old.
On April 29, 2022, Mahajan was found guilty of extortion to induce a minor to participate in sexual acts, sexual interference of that person under the age of 16 years, inviting sexual touching by that person under the age of 16 years, making child pornography, providing sexually explicit material to a person under 16 years of age for the purpose of facilitating sexual interference, luring a person under the age of 18 years by means of telecommunication for the purpose of making child pornography, and luring a person under the age of 16 years by means of telecommunication to commit an offence of sexual interference or invitation to sexual touching,
Court heard that Mahajan’s victim and his family rented a room in the house owned by the parents of his cousin. Mahajan, his wife, and others also lived there.
In April 2018, Mahajan’s victim sexually assaulted his cousin. His cousin told Mahajan, in the presence of the Mahajan’s victim, about the sexual assault. Sometime later in April 2018, Mahajan touched his penis over his clothes. He later texted the complainant saying he wanted to touch him or “we can just get it over with…”, which meant to Mahajan’s victim that Mahajan would tell his parents about the sexual assault of his cousin.
The evidence of Mahajan’s victim was that Mahajan then said he would make a deal. If the complainant agreed to have “contact,” masturbating him on 12 occasions over 12 months, Mahajan would forget what the young cousin had told him about the sexual assault. The cousin confirmed that Mahajan “began blackmailing” him at about this time.
Around June 2018, the Mahajan’s victim says Mahajan began to show him pornography and their contact progressed from mutual masturbation to mutual fellatio and by October 2018 to anal sex.
In about July 2018, the the victim and his family moved out of the cousin’s house and into their own home, a short walk away. The victim says Mahajan, who was working in a camp in Fort McMurray at the time, would contact him whenever he was in the city and demand that the complainant come to visit. The victim says Mahajan continued to threaten to tell his parents about the sexual assault of the cousin if he did not acquiesce to the sexual activity directed by him.
Between October 2018 and February 2019, the victim visited and stayed at his cousin’s house when Mahajan also stayed there on breaks from the work camp. He said when he stayed overnight on those occasions he would sleep with Mahajan in his bed while Mahajan’s wife slept on the floor.
The cousin said he was also involved in sleepovers with the victim and Mahajan when they slept in Mahajan’s bed, on perhaps 30 occasions, sometimes with his wife and sometimes when she was sleeping on the floor.
In all, the victim said he engaged in mutual masturbation with Mahajan on about 20 occasions, performed oral sex on Mahajan around 18 to 20 times, and had anal sex with him 12 to 16 times. The victim also said that at Mahajan’s insistence he sent between 100 and 200 videos of himself in various poses and states of undress to Mahajan.
Police recovered four emails from the victim’s phone sent from the victim to Mahajan and about 100 relevant videos, four of which were entered into evidence as examples. Nothing on the victim’ss phone indicated to whom or from whom the videos were sent. However, the Court noted certain text messages sent by Mahajan:
“You forgot what all you did Now its time to pay Back”;
“… I will make your life like hell”;
“I will surely make you suffer …”;
“You will also see what happens when you screw up with someone like me”;
“Come home after school will give you a little dhammaakaa [boom]”
The victim said he went to the police on Feb. 27, 2019 to confess the sexual assault of his cousin, and to tell the police that Mahajan had been extorting sexual services from him by threatening to tell his parents about the sexual incident.
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