Prosecutors allege Belleville man ‘encouraged others’ to spread child porn images
.jpg "A St. Clair County judge has issued a detention order for a Belleville man charged in a child pornography case.")
A Belleville man charged with dissemination of child pornography images has “encouraged others” to upload and send out the images, according to St. Clair County court records.
Owen J. Corder, 22, of the 4500 block of South Park Drive, was being held in the St. Clair County Jail Tuesday on the felony charges.
Prosecutors also allege Corder posted online images of a sexual nature of his girlfriend without her knowledge or consent, according to court records.
St. Clair County Associate Judge Sara L. Rice has detained Corder, who is facing eight counts of dissemination of child pornography and two counts of non-consensual dissemination of private sexual images of an adult.
Rice made her ruling during a detention hearing Monday and ordered Corder to remain in jail until his trial, according to court records.
Corder was represented in the hearing by Belleville attorney Justin Kuehn, who could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
The charges against Corder were announced Monday by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul after Corder’s detention hearing had been conducted.
Investigators from Raoul’s office, along with officers from the Belleville Police Department, conducted a search of Corder’s residence and he was arrested after “investigators discovered evidence of child sexual abuse material,” according to a news release from Raoul.
In her detention order, Rice noted the Illinois Attorney General’s Office provided evidence to show that Corder “is alleged to have uploaded (and) sent out images depicting child pornography to other users and encouraged others to do same.”
The order also notes that the prosecution alleges Corder “sent out images of (his) girlfriend” of a sexual nature without her knowledge or consent.
The child pornography charges allege Corder should have reasonably known that a person in the images was under the age of 13 while the adult image charges allege he obtained images of an adult under “circumstances in which a reasonable person would know or understand that the image was to remain private.”
Charging documents also allege the child pornography dissemination occurred between October and January and that the dissemination of the adult images occurred in October.
Corder’s case was remanded to the grand jury.
Courtney Lindbeck of the Illinois Attorney General’s Office is prosecuting the case against Corder.
Illinois judges have been conducting detention hearings since September 2023 for people charged with serious offenses. If a judge considers a person dangerous to the community, the person can be remanded to the county jail until their trial, according to the revamped criminal justice system that eliminated cash bail as part of the Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today, or SAFE-T, Act.
