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Child pornography trial nears end

The case of a Vandalia man charged with possession of child pornography could go to the jury as early as Wednesday.

The trial for William Frakes got under way on Monday morning with the selection of 12 jurors and two alternate jurors. Jury selection was completed in the afternoon, at which time the trial judge, Kevin S. Parker, dismissed jurors and began working on jury instructions with Fayette County State’s Attorney Joshua Morrison and Robert Bas, Frakes’s attorney.
The trial continued on Tuesday morning with Morrison and Bas delivering opening statements to jurors.
During his opening statement, Morrison told jurors that law enforcement learned as early as May 2015 of a local child pornography possession case.
He said that Scott Morrison, a sergeant with the Greenville Police Department who works with the Illinois Attorney General’s Office and federal Secret Service, received information about child pornography being uploaded and later associated that information with Frakes.
Morrison participated in a search warrant executed at Frakes’s home, as did Vandalia police officer Todd Emerick, who seized a phone. That phone, Morrison said, resulted in another search warrant being executed.
The phone was given to experts who were able to pull all information from that phone.
He told jurors that the trial is on charges alleging that Frakes possessed child pornography and that the prosecution’s case would show “when and where and how” he possessed it and that Frakes had “an opportunity to get rid of it, and that did not happen.”
In his opening statement, Bas told jurors, “We are confident that once you hear the evidence … (Frakes) will walk through those doors a free man.”
Bas said that Frakes “had no knowledge it (child pornography) was on his phone,” talking about unintended pop-ups.
“Mr. Frakes had no idea it was there. He first learned about it when a search warrant was served,” Bas said.
While photos being produced as evidence, he said, are “grotesque,” jurors need to “set aside the content of the photos” and consider the facts in the case.
Bas was to present the defense case on Wednesday morning. At the conclusion of that case, any rebuttal witnesses could be called, and the case will wind up with closing arguments from the prosecution and defense, then go to the jury.
Frakes was taken into custody on July 18 of last year by Vandalia Police after three child pornography counts were filed earlier in the day by Morrison’s office.
Two of the counts allege that Frakes “knowingly obtained a photograph of a child depicted as being bound, actually or by simulation, whom the defendant would have reason to know is under 13 years of age.”
Those two counts are Class X felonies punishable by up to 30 years in prison.
A third count alleges that Frakes “with knowledge of the nature thereof, possessed a photography, a child whom the defendant reasonably should have known to be under the age of 13 years.”
That count is a Class 2 felony punishable by up to seven years in prison.
 

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