Ontario principal pleads guilty in multi-city sexual exploitation investigation

London police say a 55-year-old Kitchener, Ont., man was allegedly in contact with teenage girls using Snapchat and shared explicit photos and texts with them. (Manan Vatsyayana/AFP/Getty Images - image credit)
London police say a 55-year-old Kitchener, Ont., man was allegedly in contact with teenage girls using Snapchat and shared explicit photos and texts with them. (Manan Vatsyayana/AFP/Getty Images - image credit)

A Waterloo, Ont., elementary school principal will be sentenced in the new year after pleading guilty to child sexual exploitation charges following a joint investigation that involved the London, Toronto and Waterloo police services.

Phillip Sallewsky, of Kitchener, admitted to communicating online with two teenagers using Snapchat and sharing sexually explicit text messages and pictures earlier this year.

Court documents show the teens were actually undercover officers posing as 13 and 14-year-old girls. Over the course of the investigation that started in February 2023, police said Sallewsky used multiple usernames, including "Sam" and "Chuck."

While Sallewsky was initially charged with 17 offences, he entered a guilty plea in a London courtroom on six charges. They are:

  • Two counts of transmitting sexually explicit to a person under 16.

  • Two counts of luring a person under the age of 16.

  • One count of making written child pornography.

  • One count transmitting written child pornography.

Sallewsky was a principal at Northlake Woods Public School in Waterloo and a graduate of Western Univerisity's faculty of education. He has lost his standing with the Ontario College of Teachers.

Sallewsky is scheduled to appear in a London court on January 14 for a sentencing hearing.