A 22-year-old man who lives in the Briar Ridge gated community of Schererville is among four men charged in federal court in connection with a three-month investigation into a child pornography distribution ring.
Jose Carlos Garcia, 1419 Muirfield Drive, was arrested Saturday in Skokie by members of the Chicago FBI's Innocent Images Task Force.
Garcia was charged with receiving child pornography and with using the Internet to transport and ship child pornography, according to court records.
In June, the FBI began an investigation into an informal group of self-described "Boy Lovers." During the course of an undercover investigation, each of the four men allegedly was found to be in possession of numerous images of minor children engaged in sexually explicit acts.
The investigation culminated over the weekend when Garcia and Neal Maschke, 40, of West Chicago, attended a gathering at a Skokie hotel, which turned out to be an undercover sting.
Garcia appeared in court Sunday and was formally charged. He was ordered held, pending his next scheduled court appearance. If convicted, Garcia faces five to 20 years in prison, the FBI said.
During the investigation, Garcia was recorded talking about meeting young boys via Xbox Live -- an online video gaming service -- and discussing going to gatherings to trade child porn. He also was recorded saying he wanted to go to last month's Chicago Air & Water Show to take pictures of boys, according to court documents.
In August, Garcia traveled to Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, Ill., with a man cooperating with the FBI and another man who later was arrested in the distribution ring. On the way, Garcia showed child pornography on his laptop computer, court records allege. Garcia and the other man allegedly made sexual comments about young boys at the amusement park, photographed them and talked about viewing boys in the park's bathrooms.
After leaving the amusement park, the other man allegedly gave Garcia a disk of child pornography images, which were downloaded to Garcia's laptop. Garcia also talked about producing child pornography by persuading young boys to perform sexual acts online via Web cameras, according to court documents.
Indiana's online registry shows a convicted sex offender living at the same Briar Ridge address as Garcia. That person has not been named in the case.
