Man gets 12 years in prison for sharing child pornography

A Forest Park man was sentenced to 12 years and seven months in prison for collecting and sharing nearly 200,000 photos and videos of child pornography.

Jonathan Stephens, 50, was sentenced Wednesday after pleading guilty in 2018 to one count of transportation of child pornography, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois said in a statement.

Stephens amassed about 194,00 sexually explicit images on computers and external hard drives at his home over a period of four years, prosecutors said. He also allowed others to access and download the files.

Many of the children in the images were under 12 years old “and forced to engage in sadistic and masochistic conduct,” prosecutors said.

Stephens was also ordered to pay $187,500 in restitution to children identified in the images.