RAPID CITY - United States Attorney Ron Parsons announced today that U.S. District Judge Camela C. Theeler has sentenced a Sturgis, South Dakota, man convicted of Receipt of Child Pornography. The sentencing took place on June 29, 2026.

Luke Basche, 21, was sentenced to seven years in federal prison, followed by five years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $48,570 in restitution and a $100 special assessment to the Federal Crime Victims Fund. Forfeiture was also ordered.

Basche was indicted for the charge by a federal grand jury in February 2025. He pleaded guilty on March 31, 2026.

Between December 2022, and January 2025, Basche used Mega, an internet-based chat application to search for, download, and view sexually explicit visual depiction of child pornography to his cellular phone. After Basche received and downloaded child pornography to his Apple iPhone, he stored many of the depictions in his Dropbox and Google accounts, which are cloud-based internet storage services. Investigators found over 2,500 images and 445 videos of child pornography on his phone. Basche also stored child pornography on computers and a hard drive. The victims depicted in child pornography he received included infants and toddlers.

This case 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 the U.S. Attorneys' Offices and the DOJ's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children, as well as identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit https://www.justice.gov/psc.

This case was investigated by the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation's Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force, the Rapid City Police Department, and the Pennington County Sheriff's Office. Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Heather Knox and Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Schroeder prosecuted the case.

Basche was immediately remanded to the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service.