FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
| Date: | June 26, 2020 |
| Contact: | Emily Lowe Public Information Officer 208-287-7700 |
| RE: | State v. Martin Peterson Sentencing |
BOISE – On Thursday, 77-year-old Martin L. Peterson’s 10 year prison sentence was suspended and he was placed on probation for sexual exploitation of a child.
Mr. Peterson was arrested in October 2019 following an Attorney General’s Internet Crimes Against Children’s Unit investigation and charged with 14 felony counts of sexual exploitation of a child. In January 2020, he pleaded guilty to 2 felony counts of sexual exploitation of a child.
The investigation revealed that Mr. Peterson began searching the internet for these images starting in 2014 and continued until he was arrested in October 2019. Mr. Peterson admitted to looking for images that sexually exploited children with some regularity and clarified that he looked on almost a daily basis. More than 6,000 files of images or videos that depicted the sexual exploitation of children were located on Mr. Peterson’s devices.
The Ada County Prosecutor’s Office asked for a 10 year prison sentence, with three years fixed to be served before being eligible for parole.
Ada County District Judge Lynn G. Norton sentenced Mr. Peterson to 10 years in prison with three years fixed but suspended that sentence and placed him on probation for 10 years. Mr. Peterson was ordered to serve 90 days in jail, with the first 30 days to be served with no options and the remaining time can be served with work release options if Mr. Peterson qualifies.
“I appreciate the hard work of the Attorney General’s ICAC Unit in investigating these terrible crimes which harm our most vulnerable victims,” said Jan M. Bennetts, Ada County Prosecutor. “I want to thank the Attorney General for our partnership with the ICAC Unit and the local law enforcement officers who work in that Unit.”
Anyone with information regarding the exploitation of children is encouraged to contact local law enforcement, the Attorney General’s ICAC Unit at 208-947-8700 or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-843-5678.