City man is facing child porn charges
By Steve Sharp of the Daily Times staff
Thursday, July 24, 2008 12:05 PM CDT
JEFFERSON - A 37-year-old Watertown man obsessed with violent child sexual assault and facing 10 counts of possession of child pornography in Jefferson County Circuit Court is free today on a $1,000 cash bond.
Deputies at the Jefferson County Jail said today Michael W. Ionetz posted the bond Wednesday after making an intake appearance in the Jefferson County courtroom of Branch II Judge William Hue.
According to a criminal complaint in the matter, which was written using information provided by the Watertown Police Department as well as input from the Department of Criminal Investigation and the Naperville, Ill., Police Department, Naperville police received an anonymous phone call June 13. The call came from an informant who said she had discovered a male subject, who eventually turned out to be Ionetz, who was “into hurting and having sexual relations with children whose parents were crack addicts.”
The informant later provided a written statement to the police in Naperville that detailed her online conversations with Ionetz, who was then going by a screen-name alias. The criminal complaint reads that Ionetz, under the alias, talked about “killing and torturing little girls” and that he liked to prey upon drug-addicted women with children.
On July 14, Illinois law enforcement officials were able to trace the e-mails and porn-related correspondence, including the URL address of what appeared to be a Japanese message board, to Ionetz in Watertown.
On Tuesday a Naperville police detective, along with Special Agent Jennifer Price of the DCI, interviewed Ionetz after a search warrant was issued at his West Madison Street apartment. The warrant was executed with the assistance of the Watertown Police Department.
The criminal complaint states Ionetz told officers he had been viewing child pornography for about one year and said he had been downloading it from a file-sharing site. He told officers he had 50 to 100 child pornography videos on his computer at the time of the interview.
When asked about his conversations with the informant who had turned him in to the Naperville Police Department, Ionetz dismissed them as being part of “role playing and fantasy.”
The complaint said Ionetz stated, “Although he said he mentioned to (the informant) that he wanted to have sex with her daughter, it was just fantasy. The defendant said he eventually sent (the informant) an e-mail stating that he had no intention of actually having sex with her daughter.”
Ionetz also told investigators he never had sex with a 13-year-old baby sitter as he had originally claimed when talking to the informant. Ionetz said he just told the woman that “to egg her on.”
Price reviewed 10 videos retrieved from a computer hard-drive seized from Ionetz's apartment on Tuesday. Price reported she observed severe sexual abuse of children in the videos.
As part of his bond, Hue stipulated Ionetz may not possess any computer equipment or any computer type devices, including cell phones. He may not access any computer, computer system or Internet and have no contact with any child under 18 years of age. He may also not leave the state.
A preliminary hearing is scheduled for July 30 at 2:30 p.m. in Jefferson County.
Each of the 10 counts against Ionetz carries with it a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison and a fine of $100,000.
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