Man from Chicago's suburbs gets over 33 years in prison for child pornography trafficking

A man from Chicago's south suburbs was sentenced to more than 33 years in prison last week for running an online chat group that trafficked in child pornography.

Christopher Martin, 46, of Markham, Illinois, pleaded guilty earlier this year to federal charges of transportation of child pornography, according to the U.S. Attorney's office.

U.S. District Chief Judge Virginia M. Kendall sentenced Martin to 33 years and nine months in prison on Thursday, June 11.

Prosecutors said Martin led a group chat on the instant-message app Kik, and enforced the rules for the chat as the moderator. The main rule was that to stay in the chat, participants had to share pictures and videos of child pornography constantly, prosecutors said.

In one case, prosecutors said, a prospective user wanted to join the group, and Martin told the user: "Send what you got.  Anything young is fine for group trade . . . Send youngest."

If group members dragged their feet in sharing child pornography files, Martin would write, "If you don't send [images to the group] you will be removed [from the group]," prosecutors said.

"Defendant's offense is extremely serious," Assistant U.S. Attorney Elie Zenner argued in prosecutors' sentencing memorandum, as quoted in a news release. "Defendant's facilitation of the sharing of hundreds of images and videos of young children being abused helped to drive the creation of those images and videos, and the creation of future images and videos of other abused children."

Anyone who believes they or someone they care about is the victim of sexual exploitation is urged to contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children via www.missingkids.com, or by calling 1-800-843-5678.  Prosecutors said the service is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.