Man pleads not guilty to 10 felonies regarding child porn
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IDAHO FALLS – A local man pleaded not guilty Tuesday after being charged with ten felonies regarding possession of child porn.
In May, Dallas Ziebarth, 56, was charged with ten counts of felony willfully possessing or accessing child sexually exploitative material.
Ziebarth pleaded not guilty to all charges in front of District Judge Michael Whyte during his district court arraignment.
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On April 4, detectives with the Idaho Falls Police Department were assigned to investigate a cyber tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
According to court documents, detectives were told that images of child sexual abuse were uploaded using an IP address in Idaho Falls. They later found out that the IP address was registered to Ziebarth.
Detectives determined that the last upload of child pornography was on April 22.
On May 4, detectives and members of the Attorney General’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force served a search warrant, which ended in officials stopping Ziebarth on his way to work where he was arrested.
During an interview, Ziebarth reportedly stated that he had been downloading and viewing child porn images for “many years.” He also said that he had not gone to work the day before and instead viewed child porn during the day.
Ziebarth told detectives that he used an old home computer to download and save the images and that his preferred child porn images were of children “ages 8 to 10.”
While searching the home, a small black computer was found in an office that showed hundreds of images of child porn in the recycle bin.
There were also several images in a computer folder, including sexual photos of children as young as five-years-old.
Ziebarth was booked into the Bonneville County jail with a $150,000 bond that was later reduced to $100,000. He posted bond on May 16 and was released.
He is scheduled for a pre-trial conference on Aug. 7 and a jury trial to begin on Sept. 6.
Though Ziebarth was charged with these crimes, it does not necessarily mean he committed them. Everyone is presumed innocent until they are proven guilty. He could face up to 100 years in prison and $100,000 in fines if convicted.
Anyone with information regarding the exploitation of children is encouraged to contact local police, the Attorney General’s ICAC Unit at (208) 947-8700, or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at (800) 843-5678.