Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced the charges against Allen Ayen, 62, of Park City. He faces five counts of aggravated child pornography and one count of possessing child pornography after 1600 images and videos were allegedly found on his computer.
"Child pornography is not a victimless crime. Every time child pornography is downloaded and viewed, the innocent children in the images and videos are victimized again and again. Yesterday, working with the Park City Police Department and the Lake County State's Attorney's Office, we arrest one of the top child pornography traders in Lake County and, we believe, in the state of Illinois," Madigan said.
Ayen is the firth child porn suspect nabbed since Madigan stepped up surveillance of those trafficking child porn by tracking computer IP addresses where the images are downloaded. Madigan said 8,000 IP addresses are currently being tracked in Illinois.
"You need to be asking yourself, when the door knocks, is today the day law enforcement is here to arrest me and take me out of my home and out of my community?" Madigan said.
Legal experts said tracking IP addresses is not a foolproof way to determine who has illegal images.
"They won't be able to pinpoint a house on the IP address during the time it was used but can they identify who in the house was using it? Not 100-percent," said David Donahue, Holland & Wright.
Investigators said they are looking at IP addresses where hundreds and even thousands of images are being downloaded.
