A 35-year-old Lake in the Hills man has been sentenced to 12 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections for soliciting and sending out child pornography, McHenry County State’s Attorney’s Office officials said.
Anthony Jacquez, 35, of Lake in the Hills, was sentenced by McHenry County Judge Tiffany Davis after entering a negotiated plea of guilty to Solicitation of Child Pornography and Dissemination of Child Pornography on Tuesday, officials said in a news release.
Jacquez was initially charged in 2023 with 11 counts of child pornography, one count of indecent solicitation of a child and one count of grooming following a several-month-long investigation by the Lake in the Hills Police Department.
The investigation began as a cyber tip to the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force of which the Lake in the Hills Police Department is a member.
Detectives assigned to the ICAC began a thorough investigation and obtained a search warrant on Jacquez’s residence, police officials said.
The warrant was executed at a home in the 900 block of Aster Court in Lake in the Hills.
Officials said messages sent from Jacquez’s Instagram social media account were used in the solicitation and dissemination of child pornography to a child under the age of eighteen.
In the messages, Jacquez pretended to be a young girl, and on multiple occasions, Jacquez requested and sent both photographs and videos to and from a child he knew to be under eighteen, officials said.
Further investigation of his social media accounts found communication between Jacquez and an unknown user on the social media application OnlyFans, where again he solicited, purchased, and disseminated videos and images of child pornography, officials said.
A forensic review of Jacquez’s cell phone data revealed he had in his possession over 150 videos and images of child pornography, officials said.
Jacquez was sentenced to six years in the Illinois Department of Corrections on each of the charges. The terms are to be served consecutively, officials said.
Jaquez will also be placed on Mandatory Supervised Release for three years following his release from custody, and must register as a sex offender for life.
“This case exemplifies how law enforcement agencies, when working in collaboration, can stop a child predator. Because of the tip received by our friends at ICAC, the investigation led by Detective Destefano of the Lake in the Hills Police Department, and the efforts of Ms. O’Brien from our office, this man will no longer prey on children using social media,” McHenry County State’s Attorney Randi L. Freese said.