A Harvard man is in custody after officials say he was found distributing child sexual abuse material and he also followed two children in retail stores in Crystal Lake.
Travis J. Klemann, 37, of Harvard, was charged with four counts of reproduction of child pornography, a Class X felony.
A criminal complaint filed in McHenry County Circuit Court alleges Klemann disseminated four sexually explicit videos by an electronic device on December 24.
The four videos all showed a child under the age of 18 engaged in an act of sexual conduct, the complaint said.
Court documents said Klemann posed in a chat room as a 13-year-old in order to communicate with children.
He was arrested by the McHenry County Sheriff’s Office on Thursday after an arrest warrant was issued for him last Wednesday.
Klemann is also accused of following juveniles around in two separate stores, court documents said.
Court records show Klemann was arrested for disorderly conduct by the Crystal Lake Police Department in October.
A criminal complaint said Klemann was at Daiso, 5548 Northwest Highway in Crystal Lake, which is a Japanese discount store, on October 17.
The complaint said Klemann made an effort to follow two female children to two separate stores, causing them to fear for their safety.
Klemann also had a stalking no-contact order in place that alleged he contacted a 14-year-old girl and asked her to a movie.
He contacted the girl in public and on social media after the order was in place, court documents said. He additionally has two different violations of the stalking no contact order.
The McHenry County State’s Attorney’s Office filed a petition to detain Klemann pending trial, calling him a danger to the community.
McHenry County Judge Cynthia Lamb granted the petition during an Initial Appearance Court hearing.
“Defendant has shown he has sought out minors through social media and seeks them out in public. The defendant has shown that he unable or unwilling to obey court orders and the laws of the State of Illinois,” the judge said.
Lamb also said that GPS monitoring will not protect children in the community and would only keep him from going to certain locations.
“Defendant seeking out this type of material and disseminating it to others creates an appetite for this type of material and support for the making of this material,” the judge said regarding the child pornography charges.
“This Defendant committed these offenses from his own home so Electronic Monitoring will not protect the person, persons or community,” Lamb added.
Klemann remains held in the McHenry County Jail and is scheduled to appear in court again on February 10 for a preliminary hearing.