Two sentenced on separate child pornography cases

Two defendants in separate child pornography cases have been sentenced to federal prison.

In one case, David W. Peer, 47, of Moscow, was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for possession of child pornography by Chief U.S. District Judge David Nye, according to a news release from the Department of Justice.

In early 2024, law enforcement received cybertips from an email provider that someone was using the service to distribute child pornography from multiple related email addresses. The emails were traced to a Moscow address where Peer lived and he was a registered sex offender on federal supervision for previous convictions of child pornography in another state, according to court documents in the news release.

Peer’s home was searched in February and a cellphone belonging to Peer was found. An analysis of the phone showed it had more than a thousand images of child pornography. The analysis also showed that Peer was using privacy-focused search engines to access child exploitation websites while on federal supervision, according to the news release.

Peer pleaded guilty to the charge June 17. Nye also ordered that Peer be placed on supervised release for the rest of his life after his prison sentence, according to the news release.

In another case, Eric M. Villa, 39, of Lewiston, was sentenced to nine years in federal prison for distributing videos of child pornography. He was charged with possession of child pornography, according to the news release.

The FBI began investigating Villa in 2023 for exchanging child pornography with others online under aliases on social media apps Instagram and Telegram. After discovering Villa was behind the accounts, officials received a search warrant for his home and vehicle in 2024. Law enforcement found a phone belonging to Villa in his vehicle, which later revealed he had more than 750 videos of child pornography, distributed more than 550 videos and distributed more than 100,000 files totaling more than 460 GB of data through links to an online file-hosting service, according to the news release.

Villa pleaded guilty to the charge July 15. Nye also ordered that Villa be placed on supervised release for 15 years after his prison sentence.

U.S. Attorney Josh Hurwit noted the work of Moscow Police Department, Latah County Sheriff’s Office, Lewiston Police Department, Nez Perce County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI that led to the charges of Peer and Villa. Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Johnson prosecuted the cases.

“I am proud of my office’s efforts to partner with law enforcement throughout our state to locate and bring to justice child predators,” Hurwit said in the news release. “These cases involving defendants in North Idaho and North Central Idaho shows the reach of our collaborative efforts, and Idaho’s children are safer because of these results.”

The cases were also part of the Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat child sexual exploitation and abuse. The group is led by the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the Department of Justice that uses federal, state and local resources to locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children on the internet as well as identify and rescue victims, according to the news release.