Two local men sentenced in seperate child porn and child sexual abuse cases
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IDAHO FALLS — Two Idaho Falls men have been sentenced in separate cases involving child pornography. One of the cases also involved lewd conduct with a child.
The two cases were part of a larger ongoing operation by the Idaho Internet Crimes Against Children task force. Since December, a total of seven men have been sentenced statewide for crimes involving child sex abuse material. Three of the sentencings involved eastern Idahoans.
EastIdahoNews.com has already covered the case of Trustin McMurphy, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Jan. 12.
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The other two cases are as follows:
Mathew Dudley
Mathew Dudley was sentenced on Jan. 20, after he accepted a plea agreement to plead guilty to three counts of possession of child pornography.
Dudley was initially arrested in August after a cybertip led investigators to the 38-year-old man.
According to court documents, the cybertip came from Bing Images on April 2, where what was being searched showed infants being sexually assaulted by an adult.
Officers with the Idaho Falls Police followed the IP address from the cybertip to Dudley’s home.
Dudley was detained and interviewed by police, where he admitted to searching, downloading, and saving child pornography.
Police found over 2,000 images of child pornography, with the children ranging between 1 and 12 years of age being sexually abused.
During the interview, Dudley told officers that he searched for both real and AI-generated child porn so that “He wouldn’t go after real children.”
Dudley was initially charged with 10 felony counts of possession of child porn.
District Judge Jason Walker sentenced him to two years fixed and eight years indefinite for each count, and to run consecutively.
Cristian Escalera-Maldonado
Cristian Escalera-Maldonado was sentenced on Dec. 1 to a 12-year prison term.
Escalera-Maldonado was initially arrested in December 2024 and charged with four charges of sexual battery of a minor child, lewd conduct with a child under sixteen, production of child pornography, and possession of child pornography.
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According to court documents, a family member had contacted the IFPD to report that three teen girls were involved in a sexual relationship with Escalera-Maldonado.
During the investigation, detectives were given messages and sexual videos that showed Escalera-Maldonado did have contact with them.
One of the teens was interviewed and told that she had sex with Escalera-Maldonado three to four times in early December, which occurred in parks or at LDS church parking lots. He had taken sexual videos of the teens, which were stored on his cell phone.
When Escalera-Maldonado was interviewed, he confessed to having sex with one of the teens, knowing that she was under 18.
According to a news release from Idaho’s Attorney General, Escalera-Maldonado gave the teens vapes, alcohol and marijuana before sexually abusing them.
Escalera-Maldonado was sentenced by District Judge Dane Watkins Jr. to 10 years fixed and two years indeterminate for each count to run concurrently.