Kuna man pleads guilty to child porn charge

Jonathan Dillard spent five years in federal prison last decade for possessing child pornography. Now, the 49-year-old man is headed back for at least 10 more years and possibly up to 20 after pleading guilty Tuesday to another child porn charge.

Dillard pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Boise to possession and access with intent to view child pornography. Dillard admitted possessing 57 images and 13 videos showing children engaged in sexual conduct.

A sentencing date is pending. After his release from prison, Dillard faces supervised release from five years to life.

Authorities opened an investigation after a tip from Internet portal Yahoo led police to the images and videos downloaded by Dillard.

Yahoo, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., reported the child porn in November 2013 to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Yahoo reported that someone uploaded what appeared to be images of children engaged in sexual activity to one of its chat rooms.

That same month, Brice King, a detective with the Nampa Police Department and a member of the Idaho Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, received a report that the images were uploaded by a person using a local Internet provider. The user, with a computer name of “yohondillard,” accessed the Internet through an account with CenturyLink, according to court records.

Police obtained a warrant to search Dillard’s home. They found dozens of videos and still images of children engaged in sexual activities, sometimes alone and sometimes with other people.

King estimated the girls depicted in the images were between 8 and 17. Many were under 10, he said.

In court, Dillard admitted that he used the screen name yohondillard and accessed the Yahoo chat room where the pornographic images were downloaded.

The case was investigated by the Internet Crime Against Children unit of the Idaho Attorney General’s Office, with assistance from the Ada County Sheriff’s Office. The ICAC unit is a coalition of state and local law enforcement agencies that investigates and prosecutes individuals who use the internet to criminally exploit children.

The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.

In the earlier case, Dillard was discovered to have downloaded child porn and had contact with three young children while he was out of jail on release. Dillard was not accused of harming those children.

His probable sentence was likely to have been half of the 60 months he received after that information came to light. He was released from prison in 2007.

He was also arrested in Gem County and charged with possession of child exploitative material in 2001. That charge was later dropped, according to online Idaho court records.

This story was originally published February 23, 2016 at 2:58 PM with the headline "Kuna man pleads guilty to child porn charge."