Decatur man arrested on child porn, sexual assault charges | Top Stories | wandtv.com

DECATUR, Ill. (WAND) — A Decatur police investigation led to the arrest of a 29-year-old man on various charges, including possession of child pornography and predatory criminal sexual assault of a child.A sworn affidavit said the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received multiple online tips alleging that Travis Hale-Schaefer uploaded multiple images and videos of child pornography to his Google account.Police executed a search warrant at Hale-Schaefer’s home and interviewed him at the scene. According to the affidavit, Hale-Schaefer confessed to sexually assaulting a child under five years of age as the child slept.He told police that he did this during a video conversation with another unknown person on Snapchat in exchange for money, the affidavit said.Police said Hale-Schaefer also admitted to viewing and downloading many images of child pornography after joining chat groups on the social media app Kik.He told police that the images were uploaded to his Google Photos account because it was linked with the cloud-based server he downloaded them from.Hale-Schaefer was arrested on preliminary charges of predatory criminal sexual assault of a child, production of child pornography, distribution of child pornography and two counts of possession of child pornography.He was held in the Macon…
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