Utah white supremacist arrested last year for disrupting Idaho Pride event now arrested for child abuse images

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Jared Michael Boyce, a member of the white supremacist group Patriot Front, faces the possibility of a lengthy prison sentence after pleading guilty to charges of possessing child sexual abuse images. Boyce, who was previously arrested for conspiring to disrupt an LGBTQ+ Pride event in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, entered guilty pleas in April for nine felony counts of sexual exploitation of a minor and one misdemeanor count of dealing in harmful material to a minor.

Boyce is facing up to 30 years in prison.

Boyce was among 31 members of the Patriot Front arrested last year on suspicion of conspiring to riot at an LGBTQ+ Pride event in Idaho. Their arrests came after a tipster reported observing a group of individuals resembling “a little army” loading a U-Haul truck in a Coeur d’Alene hotel parking lot.

Boyce told his mother he showed up in Idaho because Patriot Front believed those involved were “grooming kids.”

During the investigation following the arrests, law enforcement officials seized Boyce’s phone. Upon examination, they discovered 22 images depicting child sexual abuse. Court documents indicated that some of the images involved children ranging from toddlers to prepubescent ages engaging in sexual acts, while others depicted minors exposing their genitals. During a police interview, Boyce confessed to possessing and accessing the illicit images. He also admitted to engaging in sexually-themed conversations about children in an online chatroom, as well as sending images of child sexual abuse and a sexually explicit photo of his genitals to a 16-year-old girl.

In June of last year, Boyce’s mother, Karen Amsden, told The Daily Beast that she gave her son an ultimatum, asking him to choose between Patriot Front and their family. Boyce affirmed his commitment to the group, resulting in his expulsion from their household.

In addition to the child abuse image charges, Boyce still faces a misdemeanor count of criminal conspiracy to riot related to the Idaho Pride event.

The Anti-Defamation League describes Patriot Front as a white supremacist group in the United States that justifies its ideology of hate and intolerance under the guise of preserving the cultural and ethnic origins of its members’ European ancestors. According to the ADL, Patriot Front has been responsible for distributing the majority of white supremacist propaganda in the US since 2019. The group’s founder, Thomas Rousseau, was also arrested in connection with the Idaho incident.

Patriot Front has been actively involved in leading anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-drag campaigns across the country. In March, they joined other far-right and neo-Nazi groups to disrupt a drag queen story event in an Ohio park. Footage from the incident captured masked individuals waving swastika flags, performing Nazi salutes, and chanting “sieg heil” and “heil Hitler.”