Chicago –(ENEWPSF)–January 9, 2011. On Saturday, Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced the arrest of a Lake County man on child pornography charges as part of a continuing statewide crackdown.
North Chicago police arrested Ian O’Donohoe, 39, of Lake Bluff. He is charged with two counts of aggravated possession of child pornography, each a Class 2 felony punishable by a three- to seven-year prison term in the Illinois Department of Corrections, and three counts of possession of child pornography, each a Class 3 felony punishable by a two- to five-year prison term.
“Possession of child pornography is an unimaginably horrific crime. These offenders are trading images online and, even worse, videos showing children who have been horribly abused and victimized,” Madigan said. “But the same technology used to download and send out these illegal images is now being used by my investigators to track and arrest these offenders.”
O’Donohoe’s arrest makes the 17th suspect in Madigan’s crackdown on the most active traffickers who download and trade child pornography on the Internet. O’Donohoe’s bond was set at $75,000.
Madigan said cooperation among state and local law enforcement was key to the success of today’s arrest and her overall crackdown on child pornographers throughout Illinois. Today’s arrest involved Attorney General’s Office investigators, the City of North Chicago Police Department and Lake County State’s Attorney Michael J. Waller.
“The City of North Chicago is committed to keeping the children of Lake County safe, as proven by assisting the Attorney General’s Office in the arrest of a local resident for the offense of child pornography. It will be our continuous effort to send the message that this type of behavior against our youth will not be tolerated, and that all investigative measures will be exhausted to apprehend these offenders,” said George McClary, commander, Investigations Division, North Chicago Police Department.
In late August, Attorney General Madigan announced the initiative, dubbed Operation Glass House, to find and arrest the worst child pornographers in Illinois using the unique identifier that each computer is assigned when it accesses the Internet, known as an Internet protocol (IP) address. As of Monday, 5,000 Illinois IP addresses were seen trading child pornography images and videos across the state by Attorney General’s Office investigators.
Studies have shown that users of child pornography are more likely to also be sexual abusers of children. A total of 24,751 sex offenders are listed on the Illinois Sex Offender Registry, of which more than 81 percent committed a crime against a child. The Illinois Sex Offender Registry is located at www.isp.state.il.us.
Madigan also works with local and national law enforcement organizations to address Internet exploitation of children and women. Madigan’s office, with a grant from the Department of Justice, runs the Illinois Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task force, which investigates child exploitation crimes and trains law enforcement. Since 2006, Madigan’s office has been involved in more than 300 arrests of sexual predators and provided Internet safety training and education to more than 128,000 parents, teachers and students and more than 10,000 law enforcement professionals.
The public is reminded that the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty by a court of law.
Source: illinoisattorneygeneral.gov
