Plainfield Child Pornographer Filmed Kids At Spirit Halloween: Police

PLAINFIELD —The Will County State's Attorney's Office was successful in this week's pretrial release hearing to deny release for Plainfield child pornography defendant, Steve Hernandez. The 49-year-old Plainfield resident facing two counts of child pornography resides in the 14700 block of South Colonial Parkway.

According to the prosecution's filing:

Back in late January, Plainfield Police were notified through the internet crimes against children data system of multiple reports of child pornography possession, and the investigators recovered multiple files. Inquiry into the phone number led to the Verizon account of Steve Hernandez.

Files recovered from the tip included numerous videos of child pornography including multiple acts of child sexual abuse, child sexual assault, sodomy and bestiality involving prepubescent boys and girls, prosecutors said.

The court records reveal that Hernandez's iCloud account uncovered inbound and outbound text conversations that included pictures of prepubescent girls playing outside, as well as pictures of prepubescent girls in acts of child pornography.

Also, the Plainfield police discovered photographs of prepubescent girls entering a Spirit Halloween store picking out costumes, interspersed with videos of Hernandez's own children at the same Spirit Halloween store.

On Sept. 18, Plainfield police raided the Hernandez house, and authorities said Hernandez gave "partial admissions, including that he downloaded bulk files" from chat rooms containing child pornography.

"The defendant also indicated that he never deleted files due to his interest in other included images and videos, however, he intended to sort them out at a later date, but that he never had the time to do so," prosecutors outlined. "Defendant further admitted to sharing bulk files online that may have contained child pornography. Forensic analysis of the defendant's phone uncovered files containing child pornography."