A 39-year-old Meridian man pleaded guilty Monday in District Court in Boise to four counts of sexual exploitation of a child/production of sexually explicit images of a minor. Donn Michael Casper will be sentenced Feb. 6.

Casper faces 30 years in prison on each count — including a mandatory minimum of 15 years on each count — as well as fines of up to $250,000 on each count.

Casper was arrested in June, after the U.S. Postal Inspection Service served a search warrant at his house in the 100 block of Washakie Street in Meridian. The Idaho Crimes Against Children Task Force and Meridian police assisted.

Ada County prosecutors said Casper had been abusing a 14-year-old boy living with him weekdays during the school year.

Police said the boy’s parents, who are divorced, had trusted Casper to tutor their son and help him with his homework.

Casper was grooming the parents as much as he was grooming his victims, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Jim Peters.

“Grooming” is when a person tries to set up or prepare another person to be the victim of sexual abuse.

Not all sexual abuse of children is preceded by grooming, but it is common and can be used by strangers or by people known to the victim.

Peters said Casper appeared to be a good friend to the parents of his victims. He lavished gifts on his victims and took them on out-of-town trips, said Peters.

Casper had no prior criminal record and several years ago was involved with the group Big Brothers, Big Sisters.

He became the target of an investigation when police in Toronto discovered in October 2010 that a resident there had been uploading child porn from Casper’s Internet address. Videos uploaded from Casper’s address included recordings of prepubescent boys masturbating.

In July, a federal grand jury indicted Casper on a charge of sexual exploitation of children/production of sexually explicit images of a minor.

The boy living with Casper told investigators that when he was in eighth grade, Casper began talking about “his own childhood experiences with males” and gave him porn to look at, according to court records.

When the boy was 14, Casper began touching and sexually stimulating him. He also bought the boy a sex toy.

The sexual abuse decreased when the boy was 15 and 16, according to court records.

Investigators recovered 58 DVDs containing videos of sexual activity involving minors at Casper's home.

One cache of DVDs was found in a crawl space accessed only through Casper’s bedroom closet.

The DVDs contained sexually explicit videos of four boys, including the boy living with Casper. One showed two boys masturbating.

Based on their interviews with the boys, investigators do not believe the boys knew they were being videotaped.

Casper recorded the encounters surreptitiously with hidden cameras in his home, officials said.

Peters said he was unaware of any other children who were victimized in Casper’s home.

Three of the four boys were from Meridian or West Boise, and the fourth was from Montana.

Katy Moeller: 377-6413