BOISE MAN SENTENCED TO 85 YEARS IN PRISON FOR CHILD SEX ABUSE, CHILD PORN DISTRIBUTION

February 6, 2020
Ruth Brown
Idaho Statesman

An Ada County District judge ordered a 52-year-old Boise man to serve up to 85 years in prison after he was convicted of making and distributing child pornography.
Police arrested Gunnar Ericsson on a warrant in September 2018 following a year-long investigation by the Boise Police Department. He could be eligible for parole after 15 years are served.
A jury found Ericsson guilty in November of sexual exploitation of a child and sexual abuse of a minor stemming from a 2010 incident. In total, he was convicted of seven felony sex crimes involving children.
District Judge Deborah Bail sentenced Ericsson on Wednesday.
The investigation began in October 2017, after law enforcement received a cybertip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that an email account connected to Ericsson shared six videos of child pornography.
Detectives investigating this case recognized Ericsson from a previous investigation in 2010 when a victim known to Ericsson reported he sexual abused her and took pictures of her, according to court documents.
Ericsson was indicted for sexual abuse of a minor but detectives did not find the nude pictures the victim described.
Before trial, the victim recanted the abuse report and Ericcson’s charges were dismissed. Law enforcement later found in 2018 that Ericsson had intimidated the victim into recanting her report.
“During the 2018 investigation, detectives found photos of that victim from 2010. It was found that Mr. Ericsson created a new persona of the victim and posted pictures of her to various pornography and modeling websites,” according to a news release from the Ada County Prosecutor’s Office. “In addition, child pornography was found on the defendant’s computers including 144 bookmarked websites containing child exploitative material.”
During sentencing, Bail said the case’s investigator noted it was the most extensive and elaborate collection of child pornography the investigator had seen and that Ericsson “fed the darkest parts of the dark web,” according to the news release.

https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/crime/article240036828.html

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