Red Deer mom who used son in child porn and sent images to U.S. man awaits sentencing

A 44-year-old woman from Red Deer, Alta., who worked in a licensed daycare andadmitted using her own son to make child pornography will be sentenced next month.

The woman, who can't be named to protect the identity of the boy, has pleaded guilty to sexual assault, making child pornography and distributing child pornography.

She is due back in court on May 25 for sentencing.

She was arrested in June 2016 in an operation that involved Canadian police and authorities in the United States, who arrested a man in Idaho with whom she wassharing the child porn over the internet.

• How internet detectives tracked a child porn trail from Idaho to Red Deer

Peter Allen Cash, 40, was found with dozens of videos and "hundreds of photos of child pornography on [his] phone," according to an affidavit filed at a Canyon County court in Idaho.

Idahopolice were able to identify the Red Deer woman's son in some of the images and, when they learned Cash was planning to travel to Canada, moved quickly to arrest him and contacted Canadian authorities.

Insp. Dave Dubnyk, who oversees the internet child exploitation unit of the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams, described the case as one of the worst he's seen.

"This is a heinous crime that was committed on a young child by the one person they should be able to trust the most," he said while announcing the charges last June.

Parentswithchildren at the daycare where the woman worked werenotified of the charges but police said there was no evidence any children other than the woman's son were abused.

Authorities in Red Deer removed the boy, who was four years old at the time, from his mother last year and placed him in the care of other family members.

The woman had no previous criminal record and was not previously known to police.

Cash pleaded guilty to nine felony child pornography charges and wassentenced last September, according to Idaho court records.Each count carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison.

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