Cell bars (Photo by Maureen Revait, BlackburnNews.com) Cell bars (Photo by Maureen Revait, BlackburnNews.com)
Chatham

Child molester from Chatham released

A Chatham man convicted of sexually abusing a young boy has been released from prison.

Ronnie Inghelbrecht was sentenced to seven years behind bars in November of 2012 for sexual assault and two counts of possession of child pornography. A 2011 investigation discovered Inghelbrecht was in possession of 68,500 images and 1,246 videos of child sexual abuse that were stored on three computers and media devices. Inghelbrecht was convicted of sexually abusing a boy between May of 1987 and June 1991.

The Parole Board of Canada decided not to release Inghelbrecht early on March 14, 2019 because his risk to re-offend was too high. The parole board said Inghelbrecht had not made enough “progress” because he admitted to attempting to obtain child pornography in 2016 while he was incarcerated and was caught with pictures of prepubescent boys in his cell that had been cut out from magazines and newspapers. He admitted the images were for self sexual gratification.

Inghelbrecht also admitted to the parole board that he was at high risk for reoffending and there were several other victims but he had “no idea how many.” Inghelbrecht himself has previously said he thought it would be best if he remained in prison for the remainder of his full sentence to work on “self-improvement” and “participate in sex offender maintenance programming.”

The 56-year-old Inghelbrecht is a registered sex offender, has a lifetime weapons ban, had to submitted a DNA sample, and is not allowed to have contact with children for the rest of his life.

It is not known where he will be released or if police in that community have been notified that he is a registered sex offender.

Police in Chatham-Kent have been investigating to ensure there are no more victims. Police received new information a few months ago and started another investigation.

**A previous version of this story said that Inghelbrecht was set to be released Tuesday, November 5, 2019 but Chatham-Kent police have since confirmed that he was released on Monday, November 4, 2019**

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