The Illinois Attorney General's Office has provided more information about last week's arrest of a Watseka man facing multiple counts of child pornography.
As reported earlier on WGFA News, 41-year-old Brandon Shaw was named as part of Operation Glass House, a statewide initiative to apprehend the most active offenders who download and trade child pornography online.
Shaw was charged Monday with multiple counts of child pornography. He has since been released from the Iroquois County Jail having posted bond.
Shaw was charged with four counts of possession of child pornography and one count of dissemination of child pornography, each a Class X felony punishable by six to 30 years in prison.
Investigators for the Illinois Attorney General's Office, with the assistance of the Watseka Police Department and the Iroquois County Sheriff's Department, conducted a search of Shaw's residence in the 300 block of Cherry Street in Watseka and made the arrest last Thursday after evidence of alleged child pornography was discovered.
Attorney General Lisa Madigan's office reported this is the 47th arrest since Madigan launched Operation Glass House in August 2010. In 2010, the first year of the initiative, Madigan's investigations revealed a disturbing trend of offenders trading extremely violent videos of young children being raped. As a result, Madigan's office has focused on apprehending offenders who are seen trading and watching extremely violent videos involving children, including infants and toddlers.
Madigan's office, with a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice, runs the Illinois Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force, which investigates child exploitation crimes and trains law enforcement agencies. Since 2006, Madigan's ICAC task force has been involved in 612 arrests of sexual predators. The task force has also provided Internet safety training and education to more than 299,400 parents, teachers and students and more than 16,400 law enforcement professionals.
Iroquois County State's Attorney James Devine's office will prosecute the case.
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