Idaho Falls Man Sentenced To 39 Months For Possessing Child Pornography

POCATELLO — Daniel Joseph Dalton, 38, of Idaho Falls, Idaho, was sentenced today in United States District Court to 39 months in federal prison for possessing sexually explicit images of minors, U.S. Attorney Wendy J. Olson announced. Chief U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill also sentenced Dalton to 15 years of supervised release. Dalton pleaded guilty to the charge in January 2014.

According to court records, over 300 video files of suspected child pornography were discovered on a desktop computer owned and used by Dalton after Dalton left the computer at a local computer repair shop. When interviewed by a Bonneville County Sheriff’s detective, Dalton admitted to downloading sexually explicit images of children using Limewire peer-to-peer file sharing software. Dalton also admitted that he was responsible for the child pornography that police found on an external hard drive at his residence.

The case was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office.

This 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. Led by the United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc. For more information about internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab “resources.”