He is a high profile sex offender who has taken the step to legally change his name.
Buried deep within the Saskatchewan Gazette’s March 2 edition is convicted sex offender Justin Gerard Gryba who now goes by the name Justin William Pasloski.
Gryba, 29, has lived under this new alias for two months after serving time on two occasions for child pornography related offences.
In 2012, Gryba pleaded guilty to charges and was sentenced to two years incarceration before being released into the community. During the initial investigation, multiple computer devices where seized by police but they were locked and had military grade encryption.
For two-and-a-half-years, forensic technicians with the Saskatoon Police Service and a forensic technician from Ottawa, worked diligently on gaining access to the device.
On July 17, 2014 police cracked the code and what they found according to court documents was a total of 17,834 child pornography images and 1,127 videos on Gryba’s computer devices.
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Some of the footage found by police were of boys unknowingly being taped by Gryba as they undressed, the children were from a youth program that Gryba was volunteering with in Saskatooon.
In March 2016, Gryba was sentenced to two years less a day for the crime. At the time, the judge called the nature of what was found on Gryba’s computer devices both vile and disturbing.
Fast forward to Feb. 12 of this year and the convicted predator made the move to change his name to Pasloski – masking his true identity to members of the public.
“I think as a human right everybody should be able to change their name if they so choose but they should not be able to change their history,” said Deb Horseman, when we asked citizens on the street what they thought.
“As much as they have the rights to change their name, the public has the right to public safety.”
eHealth Saskatchewan, which administers and regulates the Change of Name Act, would have been the ones to give Gryba’s name change the stamp of approval.
“If an applicant put on their application that they were on the national sex offender registry, we would probably pause and take a look at that before we would process that application.” said Shaylene Salazar, eHealth Saskatchewan interim VP of strategy, quality and risk management.
That’s if eHealth was even made aware. Salazar explained that the National Sex Offender Database is tightly controlled by police agencies in every province and territory which are the only ones that can access the list.
Otherwise, when it comes to a name change request, applicants are only required to be 18 years of age, reside in Saskatchewan and be entitled to stay in the province in order to legally change their name.
Fraud on an application is one of the only reasons why a name change would be denied.
Last month, the Saskatchewan Internet Child Exploitation Unit charged Gabriel Michael Fisher with a number of child porn related offences.
Fisher, formerly known as Kevin Daniel Hudec, was arrested on March 29 in Regina and had already been designated a long-term offender.
Still, Saskatoon-based criminal defence lawyer Chris Lavier says there are secondary safeguards to keep the public safe and understands the concerns surrounding these name changes.
“For instance a sex offender is on what’s called a SOIRA – a sex offender registry where they have a requirement for 10, up to 20 and sometimes life to report to RCMP with their current name and address,” added Lavier.
“So there are other mechanisms in the system to protect the public.”
Rehabilitation is absolutely possible said Lavier and there are risk assessment tools documented in pre-sentencing reports to identify an individual’s likelihood to re-offend.
Fingerprinting has also been implemented in other jurisdictions in Canada as a requirement for a name change request as a safeguard to screen for convicted pedophiles.
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