A Bemidji man was sentenced to 21 years in federal prison after he was convicted last year of charges related to child pornography, including sharing thousands of child sexual abuse images on the dark web.
Craig James Myran, 47, was handed down his two-decade prison sentence Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Eric Tostrud after a jury found him guilty last year of advertising, distributing and possessing child pornography. His prison term will be followed by 10 years of supervised release, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota said in a news release.
During trial, federal prosecutors introduced evidence of Myran’s yearslong participation on the dark web, included advertising over 100 images of two minors and making over 1,000 posts sharing child sexual abuse images through an account. FBI special agents identified Myran as the account holder during a search of several hard drives and a cellphone recovered from his home, according to court documents.
The evidence revealed that for years, Myran used an account with a unique username to make the posts on dark web accounts. He was convicted last November by a federal jury of advertising, distributing and possessing material depicting minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
“Crimes involving the sexual abuse of children are incalculably serious,” Acting U.S. Attorney Lisa Kirkpatrick said in a statement, “For decades, believing he was protected by the dark web’s cloak of anonymity, Myran proudly trafficked in child sexual abuse material. He was deeply enmeshed in dark-web communities — sprawling criminal enterprises and flourishing online communities where offenders from around the world gather to normalize and encourage their sexual interest in children. This depraved behavior is sick, it is wrong, and it is not acceptable in Minnesota.”
Federal prosecutors in sentencing documents said Myran’s activity extended to multiple dark websites, and he had previously produced child sexual abuse media by screen recording minors during webcam interactions.
