Godfrey pastor charged in federal court with distributing child pornography
A Godfrey Lutheran pastor is facing federal charges after police say he distributed child pornography online.
Steven P. Tibbetts, 61, was charged in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois on June 19, a news release from the court stated. He was charged with distributing child pornography in Madison County Court in December 2019, but the case was elevated to federal court this month.
At the time of his arrest, Tibbetts was the head pastor at Resurrection Lutheran Church in Godfrey.
According to the complaint, the investigation of Tibbetts began in August 2019 when the social media website Tumblr provided a cyber tip-line report about one of its user accounts to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The account was searched by law enforcement and was images and videos of nude minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct were allegedly found.
The complaint also states that the center received a tip from Twitter in February 2020 that one of its users had uploaded two images of suspected child pornography.
Investigators were allegedly able to trace the Tumblr and Twitter accounts back to Tibbetts’ home in Madison County, where a federal search warrant was executed on June 18. An initial review of Tibbetts’ computer allegedly revealed the presence of additional child pornography images and videos, the release stated.
Tibbetts was arrested at his home without incident.
On Wednesday, Tibbetts made his initial appearance at the federal courthouse in East St. Louis, according to the release. At the preliminary hearing, U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Beatty ordered Tibbetts to be placed on electronic monitoring and released on a $10,000 bond pending trial.
A trial date has not been set for Tibbetts. The charge of distributing child pornography over the internet is a federal crime that as a first offense carries a maximum penalty of 5 to 20 years in federal prison, a $250,000 fine and a lifetime term of supervised release.
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