Michael C. Willis, 46, of Campton Hills, is facing a bench trial before Judge Julia Yetter on felony charges involving the dissemination and possession of child sexual abuse material. The trial began Monday and was scheduled to continue Tuesday, according to Shaw Local.
Willis was charged in June 2023 and later indicted on two counts of disseminating child sexual abuse material, two counts of possessing images depicting it and three counts involving videos. Prosecutors allege the conduct was concealed. Defense attorney John Kopp has challenged whether the material meets the legal definition of the offenses, according to Shaw Local’s courtroom report.
The trial turns on the nature of the digital evidence
Zeus Flores, digital forensic director for the Kane County Child Exploitation Unit, testified that he recovered files from Willis’s devices and believed the person depicted was real, Shaw Local reported. Kopp questioned whether the person was underage or only appeared underdeveloped and raised the possibility that the images were artificially generated. The judge will decide how those disputes affect the charges as the bench trial proceeds.
The investigation began after material was sent from Willis’s cellphone by a third party to another youth pastor at Rejoice Lutheran Church, according to testimony described by Shaw Local. The pastor reported the images and videos to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children on April 8, 2023. Andrew Uhlir, a Kane County Child Exploitation Unit investigator, testified that he received the resulting cyber tip and met with the reporting pastor that day. Investigators later searched three cellphones and a laptop at Willis’s home, with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services participating, the report said.
Willis’s church role and case history
Rejoice Lutheran Church hired Willis to lead its youth ministry in 2016, after he had spent 12 years at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Park Ridge. He was ordained through the Metropolitan Chicago Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in 2022. Synod officials placed him on administrative leave in April 2023 after learning of the investigation, and he resigned about two months later, before the June 2023 charges, according to the Daily Herald. Willis turned himself in to the Kane County Sheriff’s Office and was released on $5,000 bond.
Broader context for online exploitation reports
Nationally, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children said its CyberTipline received 20.5 million reports in 2024, down from 36.2 million in 2023. The center cautioned that the figures are reports, not confirmed crimes or a count of unique victims, and said factors including the bundling of reports and end-to-end encryption can affect totals. It also reported a 1,325% increase in reports involving generative AI technology; that broader trend does not establish whether material in the Willis case was AI-generated, according to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. For congregations, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America advises adopting written child-protection policies, training all adults who work with children and enforcing safety guidelines. That guidance does not establish what practices Rejoice Lutheran Church followed, according to the ELCA.
How online-exploitation reports are measured
National and Illinois figures describe different parts of the child-exploitation response. According to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Internet Crimes Against Children task forces conducted nearly 347,000 investigations and made more than 17,000 arrests in 2025. Those figures measure task-force activity, not CyberTipline reports or the facts of Willis’s case. The Illinois Attorney General’s Office reported in 2023 that its Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force had received more than 26,748 CyberTips and been involved in more than 485 arrests since 2019, figures that describe task-force activity rather than confirmed crimes or the Willis prosecution. The numbers are not directly comparable with NCMEC’s national CyberTipline totals, which count reports and are not a count of unique victims or confirmed crimes.
Under Illinois law, dissemination involving moving depictions can be charged as a Class X felony punishable by six to 30 years in prison. Dissemination of non-video material can be charged as a Class 1 felony carrying four to 15 years and fines of up to $100,000, according to the Law Office of Clyde Guilamo. The state uses the term child sexual abuse material rather than child pornography. The judge is expected to hear more evidence Tuesday.
