PONTOON BEACH – A man from Pontoon Beach faces five counts of child pornography after allegedly trying to meet with an 11-year-old girl and having several images and videos of child pornography extracted from his electronic devices.
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Brian A. Westerman, 51, was charged on Oct. 24, 2025 with five Class 2 felony counts of child pornography.
On July 10, 2024, Westerman allegedly possessed five video files depicting children from approximately 5 to 8 years old engaged in various sex acts with adults.
A petition to deny Westerman’s pretrial release from custody was filed by the Madison County State’s Attorney’s Office. According to the petition, Pontoon Beach Police officers were dispatched on July 10, 2024 in response to a male reportedly “attempting to meet with a minor.”
“Officers encountered the defendant, Brian Westerman, attempting to meet with someone whom he believed to be an 11-year-old female,” the petition states.
Westerman made a series of admissions during an interview conducted in the field, including that he contacted a female on Facebook via his cell phone and was sending messages and photographs. He reportedly admitted he was “supposed to meet a female in the age range of 11-13 years old” and admitted to having child pornography on a computer, which he acquired from the online file-hosting service Mega.
During a subsequent interview at the Pontoon Beach Police Department, Westerman allegedly admitted to paying for “photographs of preteens, having preteen photographs on his main phone, having child pornography on his main phone, being previously arrested for a similar incident in St. Louis County [and] talking to underage people.” He reportedly agreed to be interviewed again on July 12, 2024, and further admitted to “having nude photographs of preteens aged 10-13 on his phone, some performing sex acts.”
While search warrants were obtained for Westerman’s electronic devices, the software used by local detectives to attempt to extract the data from his devices was reportedly incompatible with those specific devices. His devices were then taken to the Illinois Attorney General’s Office for extraction, where approximately 947 items of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) were recovered from the devices, including an estimated 335 videos and 582 images.
The Pontoon Beach Police Department presented the case against Westerman, who currently remains in custody at the Madison County Jail.
All individuals charged are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
