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Levin — who has not been charged with carrying out an actual sexual assault on a child — has pleaded guilty to making written child pornography, possession of child pornography and counselling to commit sexual assault on a child.

On Tuesday, Crown co-counsel Allison Dellandrea asked for a 3 1/2 years in prison. On Wednesday, defence counsel Clayton Ruby will argue for 2 years of incarceration.

To prove the “aggravated” nature of Levin’s crimes and help buoy her argument for a harsher sentence, Dellandrea read aloud multiple explicit online exchanges Levin had with undercover officers. Most were sadomasochistic in nature and, at points, alluded to possible future meetings in person.

He encouraged one undercover officer, Toronto Police Detective Constable Janelle Blackadar, to indulge urges to become sexually involved with her young daughter, telling the investigator “you can force her.”

“The plain, unmistakeable, unvarnished encouragement of this parent to proceed, in his own words, ‘With whatever feels good to you'” offer “potential indicators that he was dealing with a person who genuinely had access to a child and was fulfilling his direction,” Dellandrea said.

I know, despite these actions and the grief and anger they’ve caused me and many others, that he has been and remains a good person

She also pointed to the spreadsheet of sorts he kept about identities on the “alternative sexual lifestyle” chat room he frequented — 1726 interactions are catalogued in this document. He also noted which ones he felt were “fake,” but did not flag any of the three undercover officers from Toronto, London, Ont. and New Zealand who engaged him.