Sex offender pleads not guilty to bringing Saskatchewan children across border

A photo of Benjamin Martin Moore shown at an RCMP news conference in Regina on Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2022. (Adam Hunter/CBC - image credit)
A photo of Benjamin Martin Moore shown at an RCMP news conference in Regina on Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2022. (Adam Hunter/CBC - image credit)

A convicted Canadian sex offender who is alleged to have driven through a barbed wire fence at the international border with two children and their mother has pleaded not guilty to charges in the South Dakota.

Benjamin Martin Moore is charged with illegally bringing the mother and children from Saskatchewan across the border last August.

He is also charged with possessing and transporting computer files that contained child porn.

The seven-year-old girl and eight-year-old boy he allegedly took over the border were the centre of an Amber Alert after they were not found at their home in Eastend, in southwest Saskatchewan near the border.

Moore was arrested two days later after he was identified in a campground near Sturgis, S.D., where he was staying with the woman and children.

Moore is also facing charges in Canada for failing to report a change of address, which is required for convicted sex offenders, and breaching a previous court order to not have weapons.

He is scheduled to go to trial in the United States in June.