COOK COUNTY, IL – A Wheeling man has been charged with possession, solicitation, and dissemination of child pornography after investigators found numerous sexually explicit images and videos of children under the age of 13 on his cellphone, Cook County Sheriff Thomas J. Dart announced today.
The Cook County Sheriff’s Police Special Victims Unit received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about a mobile app account linked to 20-year-old Jan Matthew Bautista, of the 400 block of South Navajo Trail, that had 15 images and videos of child pornography.
SVU investigators learned that Bautista was sharing the pornographic images and videos from the account. They then obtained and executed a search warrant for his residence, where his cellphone was seized.
On Wednesday, Dec. 15, Bautista was taken to custody and told investigators he used his cellphone to view, download, and share images and videos of underage children engaging in sexual acts on various social media apps. A subsequent forensic examination of his phone revealed more than 200 pornographic images and videos of children as young as infants.
On Friday, Dec. 17, Bautista appeared in the Rolling Meadows Courthouse where he was issued a $30,000 D Bond on charges of dissemination of child pornography, a Class X felony, possession of child pornography, a Class 2 felony, and solicitation of child pornography, a Class 1 felony. He was released after posting the required 10% of his bond.
The public is reminded that the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty by the government in a court of law.