Woman pleads guilty to child pornography charges
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify how many days Rebecca Pappas spent in jail.
A woman has pleaded guilty to child pornography crimes in a case where she was accused of saying she had access to two children for other child pornography users.
Rebecca Pappas, 33, of the 42W000 block of Hunters Hill Drive, Campton Hills, pleaded guilty Thursday to one count of possession of child pornography and one count of reproduction of child pornography, according to Kane County court records.
She was sentenced to six years in prison on one count and four years of sex offender probation on the other.
Pappas was indicted on 35 child pornography charges and three counts of posting graphic images. The posting-images charges alleged she used the Kik messaging app to distribute photos of two children she knew to online groups dedicated to sharing child sexual abuse materials.
Assistant state’s attorney Bob Dore said, at a pretrial detention hearing, that the images did not depict sexual activity, and the children were not harmed. Dore said she received messages from people expressing interest in having sex with the children.
Dore also said Pappas said in messages that she had access to children. In other messages, she told forum members that if they did not have access to children, they should try going to playgrounds, according to Dore.
At the detention hearing, her attorney said Pappas became depressed after she broke up with a longtime boyfriend, was laid off from her job several months earlier, and had to move back to her parents’ home. She was diagnosed with depression and generalized anxiety disorder, he said.
Pappas must serve at least half her prison sentence before being eligible for parole. She received credit for the 297 days she has spent in the Kane County jail since her arrest in October.
She will also have to register as a sex offender.