Boise man’s prison sentence in child pornography case ‘sends message,’ U.S. attorney says

A 29-year-old Boise man has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for producing child pornography, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Idaho said in a news release Tuesday.

The Idaho Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force arrested Zane Beckman, now 29, in 2020 for suspected sexual exploitation of a child. According to court records, the mother of a 10-year-old girl in Texas reported to local authorities in April of that year that her daughter had been in contact with an adult male, later identified as Beckman, over the social media app Kwai.

Court records show that Beckman asked the child to send him naked pictures of herself and sent her nude images of himself. He also had hundreds of images of child pornography on his cellphone and seven other electronic devices, authorities said.

Detectives said they used an IP address for Beckman’s social media account to locate him at his Boise residence, where he was arrested in September 2020. They found that he had produced explicit images of a 4-year-old and an 8-year-old at his residence, and found evidence that Beckman had communicated online with other minors and exchanged explicit images with them, according to the release.

In addition to the prison sentence, handed down by District Judge David C. Nye, Beckman will have to serve a lifetime of supervised release outside of prison, forfeit the electronic devices that were used to commit the offenses and pay $69,053.12 in restitution to victims. He also will have to register as a sex offender.

Beckman also paid $68,000 in lieu of forfeiture of his Boise residence.

“This sentence sends the message that significant time in federal prison awaits those who produce, distribute, or possess child pornography,” U.S. Attorney Josh Hurwit said in the release. “We will continue to vigorously pursue anyone involved in these crimes.”