Lake in the Hills police say child sex offender asked minor for ‘indecent’ images on Snapchat

A registered child sex offender solicited a child through Snapchat to send him “indecent” images, Lake in the Hills police and prosecutors said.

Additionally, the defendant, Christopher Griffith, 32, of the 8500 block of Muskegon Avenue in Chicago, was communicating with a second child who is 14, two days after being detained in the McHenry County jail, prosecutors said in a motion.

Griffith is charged with soliciting a child to send images of child sex abuse, a Class 1 felony; possessing images of child sex abuse; being a child sex offender communicating through the internet; indecent solicitation of a child through the internet; and grooming, according to the criminal complaint filed by Lake in the Hills police in McHenry County court.

If convicted on the most serious charge, a Class 1 felony, he could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison.

Prosecutors said that in November, Griffith “enticed” a child younger than 18 to send him “lewd” photographs. He also is accused of sending the child indecent video of himself in order to “entice” them to send him sexually explicit images in return, according to the criminal complaint. In a court filing, prosecutors said he also had “graphic sexual conversations” with the child.

Griffith was detained in the county jail pretrial after making an initial court appearance Dec. 28. Prosecutors argued that he poses a “real and present threat,” according to a petition to detain him.

Griffith was convicted in 2012 in Hancock County of criminal sexual assault of someone who cannot give consent, according to Hancock County Administrator Maria Hopp and the Illinois State Police website. He was 20 and the victim was 12 at the time of the offense. Griffith is a lifetime registered sex offender, according to the website.

On Jan. 6, prosecutors said they learned Griffith was communicating from the jail with a 14-year-old child, a different child than the one named in his charges. They discovered that he had also been communicating with them over Snapchat at the same time as the child named in his case, authorities said. He told the 14-year-old that he was running low on money to make phone calls and they should “sell videos of [the child] performing sexually explicit acts on the internet to raise money” for him, according to a motion prosecutors filed to take away his access to any communication devices.

Authorities allege that Griffith spoke with this child “multiple times” from jail and in detail about what sex acts to perform and what apps to download to collect the money. He also told the minor to download the TextNow app, a phone app to make calls and send texts for free, officials said in the motion. They also learned that this child was “registered as a visitor for Zoom calls” with Griffith, according to the motion.

Griffith “cannot have access to communication devices of any sort, including but not limited to computers tablets or telephones,” Assistant State’s Attorney Maria Marek said in her motion. “[Griffith] simply cannot stop communicating with minor children. In speaking with [the child] not only is he putting [their] safety at risk by soliciting her for additional child pornography and telling her to sell it on the internet, but he is feeding the market for child pornography.”

His privileges have been taken away, McHenry County Sheriff’s Sgt. Eric Ellis said.

Griffith is being represented by the McHenry County Public Defenders Office and is due in court Feb. 28.