Authorities today filed child pornography charges against a Joliet man who allegedly distributed sexually explicit images of children on the Web and went by the screen name "Pantielover."
Dennis Lee Garthus, 44, of the 2600 block of East Cass Avenue, was picked up at his home and ordered held without bail, accused of distributing child pornography in interstate commerce, according to a press release from the FBI's Chicago office.
According to the criminal complaint filed against Garthus today, he was targeted by the FBI's Innocent Images Task Force as an alleged distributor of child pornography in February 2009. That was when an FBI agent accessed a folder on a file-sharing network that contained pornographic images of children. That folder belonged to a user named "Pantielover."
Further investigation revealed more than 2,000 files on Pantielover's shared-file list, mostly child pornography, the complaint said.
The investigation traced the folder to Garthus, who lives in Joliet. When police searched his home this morning, they found a computer that was logged on to the same file-sharing network with the Pantielover user name, the complaint said. They also discovered a pornographic image agents had previously found on the file-sharing network.
The complaint also stated that Garthus told investigators he distributed images via e-mail or via the file-sharing network. He also allegedly admitted his log-on name was Pantielover.
If convicted, Garthus faces five to 20 years in prison.
Garthus is a registered sex offender in Illinois, according to the Illinois Sex Offender Information Web site; he had earlier been convicted in Will County of child pornography charges and of criminal sexual assault of a 14-year-old in 1998.
"25% of all sex offenders re-offend within 15 years"
.........Sarah Tofte
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