Winnipeg,Manitoba
Paid to watch sexual abuse of children through Skype
Teodoro ‘Ted’ Alcuitas
One of three men wanted in connection with a notorious child sex abuse case in the Philippines is living in Winnipeg, say search warrant documents obtained by CBC News.
Marshall Ruskin, 63, is a former civilian webmaster for the Department of National Defence in Winnipeg. According to search warrant documents, investigators allege he paid to watch the sexual abuse of children in the Philippines through the video-conferencing service Skype.
WARNING: This article contains details of abuse
Police have been in possession of Ruskin’s electronic devices since 2019 and are appearing before the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench Tuesday ( Feb. 8) to ask for an extension of time to keep them.
Winnipeg police seized the devices in an August 2019 search of a Garden City home Ruskin shares with his 28-year-old wife, the CBC report says.
In an unproven sworn affidavit filed with the court in order to gain access to Ruskin’s electronic devices, investigators allege he paid to watch the sexual abuse of children in the Philippines through the video-conferencing service Skype.
Police said they believe he recorded the sexual abuse from his home in Winnipeg, but they haven’t been able to get into his devices because they are encrypted and password protected.
“We all agree that this is an extremely disturbing investigation and Ruskin is a very dangerous offender who is likely continuing to exploit children,” Det. Sgt. Esther Schmeider wrote in the 2019 Winnipeg request for a search warrant.
According to three arrest warrants issued in the Philippines in October 2016, appended to the court document, Ruskin is wanted for the following offences:
- Disposition of prohibited articles.
- Photo and video voyeurism.
- Acts of neglect, abuse, cruelty or exploitation and conditions prejudicial to a child’s development.
Winnipeg police learned of the Philippines investigation in February 2017. Two years later, they raided his Winnipeg home.
According tor the CBC, Ruskin faces no charges in Canada.
Abuse in the Philippines
The Philippines investigation focused on an Australian named Peter Scully who was arrested in 2015 after a global manhunt and has since become one of the world’s most notorious pedophiles.
Scully created the “Daisy’s Destruction” video series, which featured the rape, torture and murder of an 11-year-old girl, as well as sexual abuse of other children, including an 18-month-old child.
Scully was convicted of human trafficking and rape in 2018 in a Philippines court after he was found to be the mastermind behind a dark web forum called “No Limits Fun,” where the Daisy videos were posted.
Peter Scully of Australia walks in handcuffs as he arrives at Cagayan de Oro city hall in southern Philippines on Tuesday, June 16, 2015. (The Associated Press)
Scully’s ex-girlfriend, Liezyl Margallo, has also been arrested and charged with helping carry out his sexual crimes against kids.
The National Bureau of Investigation, the agency responsible for handling and solving major high-profile cases in the Philippines, spoke to a girl who said in 2012, when she was 11, she went to live with Scully and his then-girlfriend, Margallo.
The girl’s family was poor and was told the couple would send her to school. The girl said there were two other children living in the home when she moved in.
The girl alleges she was sexually abused by Scully and Margallo and that other men would pay the couple to sexually abuse her, including a man named Marshall whom she was forced to Skype with, the documents say.
The girl, who is now in her 20s, agreed to be interviewed by CBC News on a social media video platform but asked that we conceal her identity, as she was living under witness protection until recently.
She is now married and had a son, but he recently died and her home was badly damaged in a typhoon. She was going to college but said she had to drop out after her government aid ended when she became an adult.
She described to CBC News how the abuse would take place.
“He request that I’m getting nude,” she said.
Even though years have passed, she still has nightmares about the abuse.
“I always dream that [Peter] will always do the torturing on me that time. And I always dreaming. I cannot forget what they do to me.”
She said men would pay to watch Scully and Margallo abuse her.
“The wife of Peter Scully, [s]he get the pay. He always send money,” said the woman, who alleges she would be beaten if she did not comply.
Scully is serving a life sentence in the Philippines for human trafficking and child rape and is still awaiting trial for more than 60 other charges.
Police in the Philippines say Ruskin is one of three foreign nationals wanted in connection with the Scully investigation.
The Manitoba search warrant documents say the NBI interviewed the girl on four separate occasions from 2015 to 2017, and she described the Skype sessions with an American named Marshall.
She told the NBI they Skyped “numerous times where she would perform sexual acts for him while he masturbated,” the search warrant says.
The girl told police she refers to all white men as American.
Money wired from Winnipeg to Philippines: search warrant
In the court documents filed in Manitoba, police say in 2017 the girl was shown a photo pack of 12 Caucasian males and she positively identified Marshall Ruskin as the man she was forced to Skype with.
The court documents allege Ruskin wired a total of more than $3,000 Cdn in 13 Western Union transfers to Margallo. Police allege the money was for Ruskin to watch the sexual abuse of the 11-year-old girl live on video.
The money Ruskin is said to have sent works out to nearly 138,000 Philippines pesos — nearly the equivalent of an average annual salary. In 2012, the poverty threshold in the country was 18,935 pesos a year per person.
The search warrant documents say a sender named Marshall Ruskin with a Winnipeg address transferred the funds through Western Union to Liezyl Margallo from July 11, 2012, to Sept. 20, 2012.