Father, son charged in child porn crackdown

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Thomas Babicki (left) and Joel Babicki

Updated: April 19, 2011 4:58AM

A 56-year-old Aurora man and his 26-year-old son have both been charged with felony possession of child pornography, following a statewide crackdown on the illegal downloading and trading of images.

Thomas Babicki, 56, and his son, Joel Babicki, 26, both of the 1400 block of Crestwood Drive, Aurora, were charged Wednesday with one count of aggravated child pornography, punishable by three to seven years in prison, and one count of child pornography, punishable by two to five years in prison.

The Kane County state’s attorney’s office said that the elder Babicki was found in possession of images on his laptop computer on Sunday. while his son possessed images on a CD that were discovered on Wednesday.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said Thursday that since August, 13 suspects have been charged with child pornography possession or distribution.

“We know many others continue to victimize children by trafficking in these illegal images and videos,” Madigan said. “Our aggressive effort to stop child pornographers will continue and more arrests will follow.”

The new state initiative, which began in August, has been 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 — or IP — address, Madigan’s office said. Over the past two months, more than 8,000 Illinois IP addresses were seen trading child pornography images and videos.

“The technology they use to victimize our children is the same technology that law enforcement around this state will use to identify, arrest and imprison them,” Madigan warned.