GENEVA (IL)
Shaw Local Network/Herald-News [Joliet IL]
September 15, 2026
By Brenda Schory
Prosecutor Matthew Rodgers: ‘This case is about a side of the defendant he kept from the world’
The investigation of a former Geneva-area pastor in connection with alleged child sexual abuse material began with a tip from afellow church minister to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, according to court testimony Monday.
The former youth minister at the now-closed Rejoice Lutheran Church testified that in April 2023, she received text images and videos from the cellphone belonging to Michael C. Willis, 46, of Campton Hills, a pastor at the same church. The images were sent to the youth minister from Willis’s phone by a third party, according to testimony.
Willis, 46, was charged June 26, 2023, and later indicted on two counts of disseminating child child sexual abuse material, three counts of possessing child sexual abuse videos and two counts of possession of child sexual abuse images, all felonies.
“This case is about a side of the defendant he kept from the world,” prosecutor Matthew Rodgers said in his opening statement in Willis’s bench trial before Judge Julia Yetter. Willis chose to have a judge, rather than jury, decide his case.
The former youth minister who testified said that she’d received the images and videos to her phone said they arrived on Maundy Thursday, the day before Good Friday during Holy Week, which fell on April 6 in 2023.
She testified she believed the images were of underdeveloped children, though she did not know specific ages of any of them.
“I did not speak to Michael Willis before reporting it to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children … on Saturday, April 8,” she said.
She said she deleted the images once she had reported it because “it didn’t feel right to have them on my phone.”
Andrew Uhlir, an investigator with the Kane County Child Exploitation Unit, testified about getting cyber tips from the national center’s hotline, where the tipster’s call was recorded.
“She was aware of potential child porn stored on an individual’s device belonging to Michael Willis,” Uhlir said. “I met with her the same day.”
Later, Uhlir, along with another investigator in the unit and a representative from the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, went to the Willis home with a search warrant for three cellphones and a laptop.
Uhlir testified that he knew from prior child sexual abuse material cases that Willis’s phone showed he had visited internet sites that supply these images.
Zeus Flores, the digital forensic director for the Child Exploitation Unit, testified for more than two hours Monday about how he extracted files from Willis’s devices.
Flores testified about how images are recorded when they are shared and when they are deleted, also through a phone system’s cloud. Flores said he also looked at Willis’s internet search history, which included sites known to investigators as providing child sexual abuse material.
Child sexual abuse images are also commonly tagged so those who are distributing and sharing them can get paid, he said.
“It’s a stamp for reaching out … very common in child exploitation,” Flores said.
Regarding specific images allegedly found on Willis’s phone, his attorney John Kopp questioned how they could know if someone depicted was underaged or underdeveloped, or whether a real child is depicted.
“I object on the basis of foundation to make that determination,” Kopp said, regarding the age of the person pictured. “I don’t believe that was tendered as an opinion in any report. … Is it a real child or artificial intelligence-generated?”
Flores testified that the images were of a real human being, as he had seen them in circulation long before the use of artificial intelligence became more common.
According to previous coverage, an official with the church, which was located in the Mill Creek subdivision outside Geneva, said Willis was placed on leave when officials learned about the investigation, and he later resigned.
The trial continues on Tuesday.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify Willis’s position in the now-shuttered church.