A Chicago man faces three felony child exploitation charges for making a video depicting his sexual conduct involving a female who is less than 12 years old.
The Porter County Prosecutor’s Office, after an investigation by Portage Police, filed the Level 4 felony charges against Jeremy Tobias Conley, 20, who lives in apartments on West 64th Street. A Level 4 felony carries a penalty of two to 12 years.
Portage Police were contacted April 30 by a juvenile girl, who was an ex-girlfriend of Conley’s. She recorded the video chat sent via cellphone by Conley, who had been harassing her, according to a probable cause statement filed in Porter Superior Court.
The investigation found the video was made sometime between April 26 and 30 in Conley’s bedroom in Chicago.
Portage Police Detective Nicole Heuberger and another officer visited the residence where Conley lived with his mother. Heuberger noted that a dome light, blue LED lights on the wall and a Green Bay Packers insignia over the bed in Conley’s room matched that in the video.
Conley returned home and agreed to go with the officers to Portage Police headquarters.
Initially, Conley denied the allegations. But then the detective confronted Conley with the video.
“There’s no excuse, I did it,” Conley told the detective, according to the court records.
Conley said that he had given a cellphone to his young female relative to play a game. He was masturbating when he decided to make a video, the court record states.
Jim Woods is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.