Denise Crosby: Naperville man, now sex offender, hoping for 2nd chance

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Updated: March 20, 2012 8:06AM

Chuck Balogh seemed to be Mr. Suburbia in every sense of the word.

The IT specialist lived with wife Mary and their two children in a beautiful Naperville home. Balogh taught religious education, was secretary of his homeowners association and was active in the booster club for his daughter’s marching band. Plus, the couple loved to host holiday and special occasion parties for their large group of friends and family.

All that changed at 6:26 on the morning of May 27, 2010, with a loud knock on their door.

With search warrant in hand, Naperville police swarmed the couple’s home. And a few hours later, 54-year-old Balogh was arrested and eventually charged with downloading child porn.

In October of 2011, he pleaded guilty in Will County Court to one count of aggravated possession of child pornography and received 36 months probation. The felony conviction means he’ll spend the rest of his life on the state’s sex offenders registry. And the world he once knew is forever gone.

It was a quick and humiliating downfall for the man known for his big heart and affable personality. But the train wreck really began to derail years earlier.

And it all began, he says, with the click of a mouse.

That’s when Balogh began using LimeWire, an Internet peer-to-peer file sharing program his son introduced him to as a way to download music. But the latest Billboard hits weren’t the only freebies coming into their 3,200-square-foot home. Soon Balogh began downloading porn — and among the files he opened were photos of children.

Balogh insists he did not search for child porn but did “intentionally re-use search words that had given me child porn.” He also claims he had no idea downloading these photos was illegal. He does admit, however, to developing a “morbid curiosity” and that court-mandated therapy helped him realize how unhealthy his fixation had become.

Clinical psychologist Bo Travis, who counsels offenders like Balogh, sees a broad spectrum of clients in his Plainfield office: from blue collar workers to business owners to educators, cops and religious leaders. And they all start out rationalizing their behavior by insisting they didn’t know it was wrong or that it was hurting anyone.

But in order to move on, Travis says, they must understand their actions were more than a series of mistakes. And so he asks them: If you didn’t mean to download it, why did you keep going back? If you didn’t think it was wrong, why not tell your buddies about it?

“It’s not about being a bad person or a good person,” he says. “It’s about being a human ... there’s such a wide continuum in all of us. It’s important to recognize the good but you can’t be in denial about the bad, which is often the hardest for these offenders.”

Of course, police and prosecutors take a much harsher attitude. Detectives like Keith Smith, with the Kane County Sheriff’s Department, and Naperville’s Richard Wistocki spend hours looking at the horrific images offenders download. And they get frustrated at court sentences they say are little more than slaps on the wrist, while pointing to studies that suggest 80 percent of those who look at child porn end up acting on it.

But Travis says those stats, taken a decade ago, are now considered skewed. And he points to current data that paint a different picture: Over five years, there’s less than a 4 percent chance an offender will even download child porn again, much less act on it.

Balogh says the court-mandated therapy he’s undergone since getting busted has helped him realize why he behaved as he did; and has given him strategies on how to deal with his issues. In doing so, he’s “become less angry; more calm and relaxed.”

But his arrest has also turned him into an activist: He now volunteers with Illinois Voices, whose mission is to reform current laws its members believe are too harsh.

Travis agrees legislation should be re-examined. Overwhelmingly, he says, studies show that by focusing on living a life that is healthy and fulfilled, there is a much lower rate of recidivism. Unfortunately, current registry laws make it more difficult to lead that productive life. In fact, he adds, the inability of convicted sex offenders to find housing and employment has become a significant barrier to successful reintegration into society.

Which is what Balogh is struggling with even now, almost two years after his arrest.

Mary Balogh did not abandon her husband through this “long nightmare.” Likewise, the majority of friends and family stuck by Chuck Balogh, despite the screamy headlines that ran alongside his police mug in the local papers.

But Balogh was immediately fired from his job; and Mary is now the family breadwinner with her minimum wage job. Attorney fees quickly ate through savings; and the couple was forced to sell their home. Not surprising, finding a job, even a place to live, has been tough. Just when a prospect looks good, someone does a background check. Plus, “you would be surprised at how many homes are near parks and schools,” notes Balogh, who is restricted from living within 500 feet of such places.

The family finally rented a small townhouse in Oswego, and all was well until the city posted fliers — which included Balogh’s address and photo — throughout the neighborhood.

Suddenly, little children were no longer playing on the street and once-friendly neighbors stopped saying hello.

But Balogh — longtime friend Bruce Bragg describes him as “the nicest, most generous person you would ever want to meet” — hopes “just being who I am” will eventually help get the family back to some sort of normalcy.

“What I really want now,” he says, “is a chance to get on with my life.”