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Two handed lengthy prison sentences

Two men were given lengthy prison sentences in Fayette County Circuit Court last Friday.

William Frakes was sentenced to 18 years in prison on child pornography charges, and Christopher L. Scholes was given a 12-year sentence for home invasion.
Judge Kevin S. Parker gave Frakes two seven-year sentences on Class X child pornography charges and a four-year sentence on a Class 2 felony charge, served concurrently.
With the maximum penalties being 30 years for Class X felonies and seven years for Class 2 felonies, the maximum penalty for Frakes would be 67 years, according to Fayette County State’s Attorney Joshua Morrison.
Under Illinois law, Frakes is required to serve at least 50 percent of those sentences.
Frakes was found guilty of the child pornography charges on Feb. 22, at the conclusion of a 2½-day jury trial.
The jury found Frakes, 56, guilty of two Class X felonies alleging that he “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” and a Class 2 felony alleging 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.”
Frakes was taken into custody on July 18 of last year by Vandalia Police after three child pornography counts were filed by Morrison’s office earlier in the day. The charges were filed after search warrants were executed at Frakes’s residence.
Morrison said during the jury trial that the case was initiated when Flickr, an online photo storage site owned by Yahoo, notified the National Center for Exploited Children of photos recognized as child pornography.
Morrison told jurors that Frakes uploaded photos to both his phone and a Flickr account, and that while he deleted them from his phone, he did not delete them from the Flickr account.
Scholes, 33, was given a 12-year sentence by Parker after being convicted on March 28 on charges of home invasion and criminal trespass at the conclusion of a two-day jury trial. That jury also acquitted Scholes on a charge of aggravated battery.
Scholes was charged with those offenses by Morrison’s office in May of last year.
The home invasion charge alleged that Scholes entered a Ramsey residence, “threatened the imminent use of force upon” the couple living in the home “and intentionally caused injury (to one of the residents) by striking (him) in the face with a closed fist.”
The criminal trespass charge alleged that Scholes entered that Ramsey residence “at a time when (he) had reason to know that one or more persons were present in that residence.”
The home invasion charge is a Class X felony punishable by up to 30 years in prison, and the criminal trespass charge is a Class 4 felony carrying a maximum penalty of three years in prison.
In sentencing Scholes, Parker said that he determined the criminal trespass charge to be a lesser included offense with the home invasion count.
Scholes was also originally charged with a misdemeanor offense of endangering the life or health of a child, in that he allegedly left a 4-year-old child on the porch as he entered the Ramsey resident.
That misdemeanor charge was dismissed on the first day of Scholes’s jury trial.

William Frakes

Christopher Scholes

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