On March 22, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children awarded Indiana State Police Detective Chris Cecil with a Certificate of Honorable Mention for his crucial role in the investigation that resulted in the arrest and conviction of Jonathan Martin, 28, of Vincennes. Detective Cecil is assigned to the Crimes Against Children unit and a member of the Indiana Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force.
On January 20, 2011, Indiana State Police Detective Chris Cecil initiated an investigation concerning child exploitation after receiving information Martin allegedly posted an advertisement on Craigslist wanting young girls for sex. During the investigation, Detective Cecil developed information showing Martin was involved in numerous online activities pertaining to child exploitation.
On March 7, 2011, Detective Cecil, along with members of the Indiana State Police Crimes Against Children and Cyber Crime Units, and Indiana ICAC Task Force executed a search warrant at Martin’s residence located at 1411 Prairie Street in Vincennes and discovered more than 20,000 images and videos depicting child pornography that Martin had been sharing via email clients and peer-to-peer file sharing. Martin was storing child pornography in his email account and in a cloud-based storage server in Russia.
“Detective Cecil’s expertise, creativity and perseverance resulted in the identification, conviction and sentencing of a serial contact offender against children,†said Lt. Chuck Cohen, Cyber Crime and Criminal Intelligence Section Commander for the Indiana State Police.
On February 29, 2012, Martin was sentenced in federal court to 18 years of imprisonment followed by lifetime supervised release. Martin was also sentenced on November 1, 2012, to 25 years of imprisonment after pleading guilty to two counts of Class A felony child molesting in Elkhart County, Indiana. The state judge imposed an additional credit felony restriction on Martin, meaning he will be required to serve 83% of his sentence in the Indiana Department of Correction rather than the normally required 50%. The federal and state sentences will run consecutively, with Martin beginning his state term of imprisonment when he is released from federal custody in no less than 15 years and 4 month. His total term of imprisonment will be in excess of 36 years. Jonathan Martin, who was 28 at the time Cecil arrested him, will be in custody until he is at least 64 years old.
Detective Cecil is an eight year veteran of the Indiana State Police and has been a detective in the Crimes Against Children Unit since August 2010.
