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| Dennis Lee Garthus (ISP) |
Posted: Tuesday, 12 May 2009 1:43PM
Feds: Joliet man's porn collection included toddlers
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CHICAGO (STNG) -- A 42-year-old southwest suburban man faces federal charges of possessing and sharing child pornography, some depicting children who appeared to be as young as 1 or 2.
According to the complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago on Tuesday, an undercover FBI agent in February signed onto a file-sharing network on which users "befriend" each other in order to share files. The agent accessed the file folders for a user who went by the name of "Pantielover" and downloaded 53 files, some of which contained apparent child pornography.
There were at least a half dozen images depicting sexual activity involving young girls between the ages of 2-8, the complaint says.
In March, the agent shared some adult porn with "Pantielover," who it was determined lived at 2620 E. Cass St. in Joliet. In return, he allegedly got more child porn from the user, including videos involving what appeared to be forced sexual contact with girls as young as 1 or 2, according to the complaint.
In an online conversation, the suspect told the undercover agent that two of the girls, ages 4 and 7, were his own, whom he was molesting. His claims appear unfounded, according to the complaint.
In April, another FBI agent joined the investigation, connected to the suspect's shared files list, and determined he was sharing more than 2,000 files, the majority of which appeared to be child porn.
Agents found there were multiple people at the Cass Street address, but a search of the state's sex offender registry showed that one resident, Dennis Lee Garthus, was a registered sex offender.
A search warrant was obtained Monday and on Tuesday agents went to the home and found a computer turned on and logged onto the same file-sharing network, according to the complaint. The agent observed that the user who was logged on was named "Pantielover."
Agents interviewed Garthus, who told them he had gotten the child porn images through e-mail or the file-sharing network, and had also distributed those images through the network or e-mail.
Court information for Garthus was not immediately available Tuesday afternoon.
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