Three North Idaho men have been sentenced to federal prison for child exploitation

Three North Idaho men will spend years in federal prison after prosecutors were convicted of child pornography and seduction.

One man, Rathdrum resident Donovan Vinton Nagle, 62, will serve 7.5 years in prison and then spend the rest of his life under the supervision of federal probation agents, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Idaho.

Vinton was ensnared in an online sting operation in the summer of 2023 by a federal agent posing as the mother of an 11-year-old girl. Vinton sent photos and arranged to meet the fictional mother and her daughter for sex at a hotel in Coeur d’Alene.

Instead, he was met in the hotel parking lot and arrested by investigators while carrying a bag of candy, ice cream bars and energy drinks.

In another case, 39-year-old Lewiston resident Eric Marshall Villa was sent to prison for nine years for possessing child pornography.

Federal investigators seized Villa’s phone and discovered that he had received more than 750 videos of child pornography and had distributed more than 550 videos. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, he exchanged pornography with others online through aliases on Instagram and Telegram.

And David William Peer, 47, of Moscow, Idaho, was sent to federal prison for ten years for possession of child pornography.

Peer is already a registered sex offender and when detectives searched his home based on tips, they found more than a thousand images of child pornography.

“I am proud of my office’s efforts to work with law enforcement across our state to identify child predators and bring them to justice,” U.S. Attorney Josh Hurwit said in a statement.