Swansea Man Sentenced for Producing Child Pornography

A Swansea man was sentenced on October 24, 2011, for producing child pornography the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, Stephen R. Wigginton, announced today. Cory Reibel, 24, Swansea, IL, was sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 360 months on each of two counts, to run concurrently; a lifetime term of supervised release on each count, also to run concurrently; fined $1,000 on each count, for a total fine of $2,000; and ordered to pay a special assessment of $200. In addition, upon his release from prison, Reibel must register as a sex offender as a condition of his supervised release. Reibel has been held without bond since his arraignment on April 12, 2011.

“Protecting our children from predators is one of my highest priorities. This is a long and well-deserved sentence for someone who has so seriously affected a child by using the child as he did.” said United States Attorney Wigginton.

The violations occurred on February 6 and February 19, 2011. At the time, Reibel was living with his girlfriend and his girlfriend’s minor 3-year-old child in Swansea. On March 5, 2011, the victim’s mother was going through the e-mails and photographs on Reibel’s cell phone when she saw a picture of her minor child’s nude genital area. The victim’s mother forwarded the photographs to her telephone, and then immediately confronted Reibel, eventually leaving the apartment with her child. She later texted Reibel to ask him why he took the pictures. Reibel responded that he did not know why he took the photographs and that he could not explain himself.

Two of the photographs depicted Reibel pulling the minor child’s underwear aside to expose his/her genitals, which he then photographed using what appears to be a flashlight. The underwear shown in the photographs was subsequently seized as evidence. Additional photographs recovered from Reibel’s telephone depicted the victim completely nude, with the exception of one photograph where he/she was wearing only one red boot, with his/her legs spread open to expose his/her genitals.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

The case was investigated by the Swansea Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Metro East Cyber Crimes and Analysis Task Force. The case was assigned to Assistant United States Attorney Angela Scott.