Below is a transcription of former Ontario lawyer Sagi Schwartzberg,’s story, which he wrote out by hand for the court’s consideration in his April 4 sentencing for charges including receipt of child pornography.
Any words that were completely illegible on the low quality copy available to the public are indicated with XXXX. Follow Our Courts is responsible for any transcription errors.
I failed. I failed as a husband, father, lawyer, and, most importantly, a member of our society. I failed to follow and respect the law. In fact, I broke the law that I swore to uphold nearly 11 years ago when I was sworn in as a lawyer. I am disgusted with myself, disappointed in myself and ashamed of myself for what I’ve done. I take full and complete responsibility for my conduct and the offense. I deserve to be punished.
Since my arrest on Feb. 17, 2021, subsequent incarceration on March 1, 2021 and placement in solitary confinement on March 11, 2021 for both my fear and jail staff’s fear for my safety due to the nature of my charges and my profession, I spent a lot of time reflecting on and thinking about what lead (sic) me here – where things went wrong and what choices I made that caused me to commit the offense, and why I failed to make appropriate decisions, or take appropriate steps that would have prevented my commission of my offense by making better choices, relying on support, family, resources – and honesty with myself.
I can believe that prior to the offensive conduct, I was dealing with a significant and ever increasing amount of stress. My stress and life troubles are not an excuse for my choices; everyone faces life stress and troubles and doesn’t commit crimes because of it – but I believe this stress, along with my lifestyle and my failure to take appropriate steps to resolve it, control it and/or manage it, combined with my self-gratification for my actions spiraled into the wrongful conduct that lead (sic) to the commission of the offense. It seemed like the more stress piled on, and with failure to manage it, the more I engaged in the offensive conduct.
I was one of the partners in a new law firm, with two attorneys (myself included) and 5 full-time staff. Just prior to the commencement of the offensive conduct, our firm was one bad month away from going under to the point that my partner and I took a break for some time and my partner actually loaned the firm $15,000 (note: the 1 is unclear and could be a 2 or 7).
At the same time we were involved in contentious and XXXXous litigation over a purchase of another law firm that went south. After we sued, they countersued, and named my partner and me personally. We had no money to pay for attorneys to represent us, so since I handled civil litigation I was tasked with representing our firm for ourselves. Between the ever increasing amount of time this case took, every other active case we had, most of which was on contingency, and the concern about the financial status of the firm, I took on a lot claims and work to make sure our firm had the money to support the staff, and my family. I worked myself to death trying to maintain a successful image, be well known and respected, maintain a good reputation, and make money.
I also couldn’t say “no” when friends and family needed legal assistance XXXXndly pro-bono. I was overworked, overwhelmed and at a breaking point.
At a certain point around that time, I returned to use an app that I used years prior called “Kik.” I found myself going on this app when I needed a “break” while working late hours, either at the office or home. Eventually, the chat groups I got into went from those who shared regular pornography, to those who shared underage/child pornography. At first I was just a passive viewer, but that lead (sic) to my sharing of photos and videos I saw on some groups with other groups. At the time, I knew this was wrong. But I justified it to myself by telling myself that I wasn’t downloading it or abusing or touching those children and sharing it, so it was a “victimless crime.” I tried to convince myself of this. I know it was wrong, and my justifications were false.
Around the same time, I saw a posting on a website I used to visit from time to time called 4Chan. The posting was about girls who sell photos/videos of themselves on Kik or Snapchat. This post included pictures and usernames of various girls. I ended up contacting one, and after negotiating price, I bought photos/videos of her. I then realized that I like buying photos/videos more than viewing commercial porn because it felt more sXXXXre. I then started looking for more “sellers” on various apps, and asking girls I bought from if they knew of other sellers. Even if they looked young, I didn’t bother confirming that they were adults.
As time passed, and stress continued to increase with many concerns – especially during the COVID-19 shutdowns where my wife and I had to balance working from home and caring for our 2 young children full time as their day-care closed, and my younger sister suffering a XXXX disease condition while living overseas, I found myself busy as ever, and buying more photos/videos from girls – even from one who asked me to pay her in gift cards instead of Venmo or Cash App because she said she wasn’t old enough to use those payment methods. She told me she used certain gift cards to get photos/videos, and I willfully ignored asking her how old she was even though she looked young. While she was the only girl that asked to be paid with “vanilla” gift cards, she was not the only girl who looked young – I just never could be bothered to ask to confirm ages of the girls I was buying from.
My use of the Kik app and belonging to groups that shared child pornography and forwarding content from group to group, and buying photos/videos increased. While I never shared pictures or videos I bought of young-looking women – because I felt they were “mine” and felt the photos/videos were exclusively mine, I did save many on my phone so I could view them when I had more downtime.
The use of Kik, and purchasing photos/videos from various girls became a habit—even an addiction – that occupied more and more of my time.
Instead of talking to my wife about my struggles and feelings, I ignored/neglected my marriage. Instead of talking to my partner about my workload and our sharing of profits, I just kept taking on cases and fighting the personal litigation over the law firm purchase, even though I wanted to settle it, because my partner resisted. Instead of finding, and speaking to a therapist, I told myself that I didn’t need one because I was could stop any time. But I didn’t.
After a few months of engaging in the offensive conduct, I finally asked myself, “What are you doing? This is wrong. You have a good life, great career and loving wife and kids. This will hurt you and your wife and your family.” As a result of realizing just how wrong my conduct was, in or about December 2020, I deleted the Kik app, and a few weeks later I deleted the Snapchat app. I failed, however to delete the app where I saved the photos/videos I purchased over the previous months.
Once I deleted the apps, I swore to myself that I will never again engage in this terrible behavior, and that if I got the urge to do so, I would seek help; I didn’t want XXXX to risk the life I built for me and my family, and the career and reputation I worked so hard to achieve. I had the false belief that I had self control and still denied my need for help. Two months later, I was arrested and subsequently charged for my conduct.
Words cannot express how horrible I feel, not because of the shame and embarrassment of being caught, and not because of the consequences my arrest had, and will have. But how terrible I feel about actually engaging in this conduct to begin with. This conduct was not only wrong, immoral evil and depraved, it was illegal, and my self-justification in continuing to engage in it over time is just as bad. Child pornography is not a victimless crime. Just viewing it and worst – sharing it creates a XXXX place for it, which in time encourages people to sexually abuse children and regard this XXXX.
This false justification led me to participate in this conduct myself.
The harm to these poor helpless children XXXXs and XXXXs the abuse, but they have to live in fear and XXXX for the rest of their lives. XXXX photos/videos of them are out there. I am ashamed and disgusted with myself for perpetuating this awful XXXX and XXXX.
In buying photos/videos from the victims, I XXXX took advantage of situations where young girls have XXXX content available. Instead of justifying my purchases by telling myself that they are doing it out of their own free will or that if I didn’t buy someone else would or that they were selling it to others, I shouldn’t have approached these girls to buy from, especially the girls I knew were under 18.
I would give anything in the world to turn back time to make sure I never committed the offenses and never hurt the victims or perpetuated the harm to these depicted in the photos/videos I saw and forwarded.
The amount of guilt I feel for the pain and harm my conduct caused, and will continue to cause, is unbearable. The pain and harm I caused to the victims and their families; and the pain and harm I caused my family, especially my wife and kids, and the future harm my children will suffer when they grow up and learn of my actions that resulted in them growing up without me and the pain I caused my business partner, our employees, and the pain I caused my friends and colleagues.
Not a day has gone by that I haven’t felt the pain from this guilt, the shame and embarrassment and the feeling of unbearable regret. Not a day will go by for the rest of my life that I will not feel the pain from the guilt, the shame, embarrassment and regret for my actions. I can’t believe I failed to use XXXX resources that were at my disposal to contain/manage me, help the stress, beat the compulsion or engage in the offensive conduct.
As I start to rebuild my life, I will use all of these resources to ensure I learn to manage and control my stress, and manage/control whatever compulsion lead (sic) me to commit this terrible offense. I will never fail like this again, and will do anything in my power to rehabilitate myself as an upstanding member of society again.
I will never be able to appologize (sic) to the victims, their families, my family, kids, colleagues and friends enough.
I only hope and pray that they can all heal from the impact my offense inflicted. I will do anything and everything in my control to help them heal if given the opportunity. I am forever truly sorry.
I respectfully request that you consider the reflection I share here in considering a sentence for my crimes.
Respectfully submitted,
Sagi Schwartzberg
See the original in Schwartzberg’s hand here.
