David Lee McDermid, 33, of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, will serve 60 months in federal prison for possession of sexually explicit images of minors, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced. McDermid was sentenced today before Chief U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill in Boise. McDermid will be on supervised release for five years after he completes his prison term. He pleaded guilty in November 2010.

According to the plea agreement, McDermid, formerly of Boise, Idaho, was employed between November 2000 and April 2006 as a software engineer at Micron Technology. In April 2006, McDermid returned to Canada. Prior to his personal items being picked up and shipped to him in Canada, McDermid contacted a friend in Boise and asked him to delete some pornography files from McDermid’s desktop computer’s hard drives, which were in a box in McDermid’s garage in Boise. The friend was not successful in deleting all of the files. McDermid’s personal effects were transported to Canada a few days later. In May 2006, Canadian border security officers conducted a border search of McDermid’s personal effects, including his computer, and discovered images of child pornography. At that time, it was the largest amount of child pornography ever seized by Ottawa police. When McDermid was told of their findings, he replied that he thought the child pornography had been deleted.

McDermid was acquitted in Canada in November 2008 of importing and possessing child pornography. Ontario Superior Court Justice Charles Hackland ruled that McDermid had never technically possessed the more than 22,000 images in Canada, because he tried to have the three computer hard drives deleted before they were shipped from Boise to Ottawa. Hackland ruled that the instruction from McDermid to his friend in Boise to “nuke” the hard drives before sending them to Ottawa created reasonable doubt that McDermid intended to import the materials to Canada.

“Those who possess and distribute child pornography aid and abet the continuing abuse of children, who are the most vulnerable of victims,” said United States Attorney Wendy Olson. “We will continue to investigate and prosecute these offenders, and hopefully deter these terrible crimes against children.”

“Possessing illicit images of innocent children is a serious crime,” said Leigh Winchell, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agent in charge for the Pacific Northwest. “HSI will vigorously investigate child exploitation cases like this one to protect our children and bring these predators to justice.”

The case was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Ottawa (Canada) Police Service, and Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA).