Boise man sentenced to 85 years in prison for child sex abuse, child porn distribution
An Ada County district judge ordered a 52-year-old Boise man to serve up to 85 years in prison for making and distributing child pornography.
Police arrested Gunnar Ericsson on a warrant in September 2018 following a yearlong investigation by the Boise Police Department. A jury found Ericsson guilty last 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.
Fourth District Judge Deborah Bail sentenced Ericsson on Wednesday; he could be eligible for parole after serving 15 years.
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 recognized Ericsson from a previous investigation in 2010, when a victim known to Ericsson reported that he sexually 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 Ericsson’s charges were dismissed. Law enforcement said they later found 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.
Prosecutors also said that “child pornography was found on the defendant’s computers,” including 144 bookmarked websites that contained child exploitative material.
During sentencing, Bail said the case’s investigator noted that 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.
Anyone with information regarding the exploitation of children is encouraged to contact their local law enforcement agency, the Idaho Attorney General’s Internet Against Crimes Unit at 208-947-8700 or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-843-5678.
This story was originally published February 6, 2020 at 8:58 AM.
