Attorney General Madigan announces two arrests as statewide crackdown on child pornographers continues

 Kane County Father and Son Arrested on Child Pornography Charges

 

 

Chicago, IL ─ With Wednesday’s arrests (October 20, 2010) of two Kane County men, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced that 13 suspects have been charged since her crackdown began in August targeting the most active participants in downloading and trading child pornography on the Internet.

 

Aurora Police arrested Thomas Babicki, 56, and his son, Joel Babicki, 26, both of Aurora. The initial investigation revealed child pornography on a laptop computer. Both men are charged with one count of aggravated child pornography, a Class 2 felony punishable by three to seven years in the Illinois Department of Corrections and one count of child pornography, a Class 3 felony punishable by a term of two to five years in prison. They are scheduled to appear in bond court today. 

 

“Thirteen individuals stand charged with child pornography since we began this initiative, but we know many others continue to victimize children by trafficking in these illegal images and videos,” said Attorney General Madigan. “Our aggressive effort to stop child pornographers will continue and more arrests will follow.”  

 

Madigan said cooperation between her office and Kane County State’s Attorney John Barsanti made yesterday’s arrests possible. Attorney General Madigan also stressed that local law enforcement is essential to the success of the ongoing effort to crack down on child pornographers in Illinois.

 

“I appreciate the efforts put forward by the Attorney General’s Office to stop those who prey on our youth,” said Aurora Police Department Chief Greg Thomas.

 

In late August, Attorney General Madigan announced a new initiative 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. Over the past two months, more than 8,000 Illinois IP addresses were seen trading child pornography images and videos. 

 

“Internet predators are on notice that the technology they use to victimize our children is the same technology that law enforcement around this state will use to identify, arrest and imprison them,” Madigan said.

 

Studies have shown that users of child pornography are more likely to also be sexual abusers of children. A total of 24,625 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.

Along with this initiative to arrest child pornographers, 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 defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty by a court of law.