Bryan Beal
JACKSON CO., Ill.—A DeSoto man with a history of child pornography has been arrested again in Jackson County.
And locals are wondering what the heck is going on in Jackson County that someone with the kinds of problems this guy has is even out and about and able to offend again.
While Bryan Beal’s alleged offense this time is one only of non-compliance (he was the subject of a compliance check conducted by federal marshals yesterday, October 20, as part of their ongoing effort to help ensure sex offenders are where they say they are, where they’re supposed to be, etc.), the arrest calls attention to something disturbing: The 2009 offense that caused Beal, 31, to get on the sex offender registry to begin with, was an Aggravated Child Porn charge that was pled down to “just” Child Porn (if there can be such a thing) and his whopping four years in prison was of course not that…otherwise, he’d still be on MSR (mandatory supervised release, or parole)…which he’s not. Meaning he was released early…which, in turn, means (to a lot of people, anyway) that someone in the prosecutorial realm in Jackson County has their priorities screwed up.
Jonathan Quertermous’ Jackson County mugshot
Contrast this with what happened a couple of weeks ago to a guy named Quertermous.
Jonathan Quertermous has been charged in Jackson with Unauthorized Videotaping after an incident in a Kohl’s fitting room in Carbondale, whereby he was accused of taking what amounts to an “upskirt” shot (placing a camera at the bottom of a fitting room divider and getting an unauthorized pic or vid of the person in the next fitting room over, as in looking up a skirt, which seems to be a favorite pastime of some pervs out there.)
Problem is…information we’ve come across in this instance indicates that there was no upskirt shooting or filming at all.
Apparently Quertermous was actually taking a selfie in the fitting room mirror in HIS fitting room, not a pic of someone else. And evidence, we’ve been told, is going to show this. The lil gal in the next fitting room, apparently a nervous Nellie of sorts, thought when she heard that ‘click” sound of a cell phone camera going off, that someone took a pic of HER…which wasn’t the case. Yet Quertermous was arrested, and has been charged. He has a prelim on the matter on Thursday.
So Jackson County is going to charge a guy taking selfies with Unauthorized Videotaping (when there is no videotape, nor pics of anyone in an adjacent fitting room [which problem could be rectified if some of these new stores would just SEPARATE the men's and women's fitting rooms; but I digress]), but a real Child Pornographer is going to get a slap on the wrist and be out and about and stupid enough to not even report his change of address so the U.S. Marshals can know where his ass is?
That’s what it looks like, and herein lies the problem. Prosecutorial priorities are screwed up.
Mike Carr is current prosecutor in Jackson right now. Mike Wepseic was prosecutor when Beal was first caught. We’ll see what Carr decides to do with Beal.
Pravin Varughese
Molly Young
But whatever he does, he’s going to have to ensure that at least he asks that the punishment fit the crime. Because it appears that they’re in such chaos over there in Jackson County right now, what with the Molly Young thing and the Pravin Varughese thing and the Jody O’Guinn thing that emerged from the first two things, as well as the poor Tyler Smithpeters thing that occurred last week, that it appears Mike Carr‘s head might just be spinning with the whole mess…and Carbondale police aren’t helping matters any by adding the ridiculous Quertermous thing as well.
Tyler Smithpeters, photo from siusalukis.com
We’ll keep you posted on the latter; we’re planning something for the November 12 issue on that. Be watching.