BEMIDJI — A Bemidji man has been sentenced to 21 years in prison after an investigation revealed that he had advertised and distributed child sexual abuse material over the dark web.
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, 47-year-old Craig James Myran was an active participant on a site on the dark web that was dedicated to discussing and trafficking child sexual abuse material. For years, he used an account with a unique username to make over a thousand posts in which he shared images of child sexual abuse on the site.
"In at least one post, Myran requested specific files of known child sexual abuse material from other users," a release from the U.S. Department of Justice said. "And in another post, he advertised over 100 images depicting the sadomasochistic sexual abuse of two prepubescent minors."
Special agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation executed a search warrant on Myran’s apartment in Bemidji on Dec. 8, 2022, where they found several hard drives and a cellphone.
Forensic analysis of those devices uncovered evidence establishing that Myran was the user of the unique account on the website — including files of the child sexual abuse material that he shared and requested on the site, as well as a message directed to his unique alias — and thousands of other images of child sexual abuse material, the release said.
According to the government’s sentencing memorandum, Myran’s sexual exploitation of minors was not limited to his activity on this particular site.
"He was simultaneously an active participant on multiple other dark-web sites dedicated to trafficking in child sexual abuse material and reported that he previously produced his own child sexual abuse material by screen-recording minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct during online webcam interactions," the release noted.
On Nov. 20, 2024, a federal jury convicted Myran for advertising, distributing and possessing material depicting minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. He was sentenced Tuesday, April 1, to 262 months in prison, followed by 10 years of supervised release.
In handing down the sentence, U.S. District Court Judge Eric Tostrud remarked: "The defendant’s crimes reflected disregard for the victims’ humanity. He treated society’s most vulnerable victims, young children, as sex objects and nothing more."
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Tostrud added that Myran’s "crimes were far from impulsive. He did not stumble onto the dark web by accident. He used it in an effort to conceal his activities, because he knew what he was doing was very wrong," the release said.
The case is the result of an investigation by the FBI Minneapolis Field Office and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. It was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice.
Led by U.S. Attorney’s Offices and Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims.
For more information about Project Safe Childhood, visit www.justice.gov/psc.
The Trust Project
