South Elgin man charged with child porn possession

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Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM

A South Elgin man has been charged with possession of child pornography, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced Friday.

South Elgin police arrested Ronald Lee Gablin, 31, on one count of aggravated possession of child pornography, a Class 2 felony punishable by a three- to seven-year prison term; and one count of possession of child pornography, a Class 3 felony punishable by a two- to five-year prison term, authorities said.

Gablin is the 18th person arrested in an ongoing crackdown by Madigan’s office targeting what it calls “the most active traffickers who download and trade child pornography on the Internet.” Gablin’s bond was set at $250,000, and his next court date was set for 9 a.m. Thursday at the Kane County Judicial Center.

Madigan said in a press release that cooperation among state and local law enforcement agencies has been key to the arrests of accused child pornographers throughout Illinois. Gablin’s arrest involved attorney general’s office investigators, the South Elgin Police Department and personnel from the office of Kane County State’s Attorney Joseph H. McMahon.

“Possession of child pornography is not a victimless crime,” Madigan said in the release. “Each time an image or video is viewed, downloaded or traded online, it victimizes again and again these children who are being horribly abused. My office will continue finding these offenders and making arrests throughout Illinois to protect the innocent victims whose lives are destroyed by their crimes.”

The crackdown, dubbed Operation Glass House, started last August “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,” the release said.

As of Friday, 6,000 Illinois IP addresses were seen trading child pornography images and videos across the state by attorney general’s office investigators, authorities said.

The release noted that studies have shown that users of child pornography are more likely to also be sexual abusers of children. A total of 24,796 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.

Madigan said her office also works with local and national law enforcement organizations to address Internet exploitation of children and women. Using a grant from the Department of Justice, the office runs the Illinois Internet Crimes Against Children task force, which investigates child exploitation crimes and trains law enforcement.

Since 2006, Madigan’s office has been involved in more than 350 arrests of sexual predators and provided Internet safety training and education to more than 164,000 parents, teachers and students and more than 12,500 law enforcement professionals, according to the release.