Mason County man arrested on child porn charges

A Mason County man was arrested Thursday for allegedly being Illinois' No. 2 downloader of child pornography over the past month.

The arrest of Fred A. Tribbett Jr., 39, at his home in Kilbourne was part of Attorney General Lisa Madigan's Operation Glass House, a crackdown on the state’s most active traffickers who download and trade child pornography online.

The arrest comes a week after authorities arrested a Jacksonville man for being the alleged downloader of the most child porn over the last month.

Tribbett, a convicted sex offender, was charged with six counts of aggravated possession of child pornography. Because of his criminal background, the charges were enhanced to Class 1 felonies, with each count punishable by four to 15 years in prison.

The arrest is the 34th of Operation Glass House, which involves investigators using computer IP addresses to track the online trading of child porn images. In the last 120 days, 3,200 Illinois IP addresses were seen trading such images, Madigan’s office said.