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Chicago Tribune
a day ago
- Chicago Tribune
State trooper, a youth hockey referee, arrested on federal child porn charges
An Illinois state trooper who also served as a youth hockey referee was arrested on child pornography charges this week while at work at the agency's Des Plaines headquarters, authorities said. Colin Gruenke, 37, of Deerfield, was charged in a criminal complaint unsealed in U.S. District Court on Thursday with one count of distribution of child pornography, court records show. Prosecutors are seeking to have Gruenke held without bond pending trial, and a detention hearing is set for Monday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Young Kim. Gruenke's lawyer, Rick Meza, declined to comment Friday. According to the complaint, authorities were first alerted in September 2024 that someone using the screen name 'cgiceman' was distributing multiple files containing child pornography through the social networking platform Kik. The screen name appeared to reference Gruenke's involvement with hockey, from playing in a Northbrook men's league to refereeing junior hockey league games, including the 2018 Illinois State High School Hockey Championships, the complaint alleged. After obtaining search warrants for Gruenke's phone and Deerfield condominium, agents with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Investigations confronted the trooper at about 10 a.m. Wednesday at the Illinois State Police Chicago District offices in Des Plaines, the complaint alleged. At the time, Gruenke was holding an Apple iPhone in his hand, which he handed over to the agents. 'During the manual review of the iPhone, officers discovered thumbnails of deleted screenshots depicting child pornography in the iPhone's 'Files' application,' the complaint alleged. The images, which were later fully recovered, depicted 'fully nude prepubescent children with their genitals displayed in a lewd and lascivious manner,' according to the charges. At the same time of Gruenke's arrest, agents executed a search warrant at his home on Waukegan Road in Deerfield, where they found a 16-gigabyte flash drive inside a nightstand drawer in his bedroom, the complaint alleged. In addition to a folder labeled with Gruenke's government-issued email, another subfolder on the flash drive labeled 'DIVX' contained about 200 video files of children as young as nine being sexually abused by adults, the complaint alleged. Gruenke, who has the rank of trooper first class, joined the Illinois State Police in 2019 and currently worked in patrol in Troop 3, which covers the entire Chicago area, according to an agency spokesperson. He's been placed on administrative leave without pay pending the outcome of the case. Gruenke's salary is currently $86,000, state payroll records show. jmeisner@
San Francisco Chronicle
01-05-2025
- San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco's Asian Art Museum to return four ancient Thai sculptures looted in the 1960s
Four ancient bronze sculptures looted from Thailand more than half a century ago are set to return home from the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, Thai officials announced this week. The long-awaited repatriation marks a milestone in Thailand's efforts to reclaim cultural artifacts and brings emotional closure for at least one of the villagers who originally discovered them. The sculptures, known collectively as the Prakonchay artifacts, include three Bodhisattva statues and one Buddha image. They were originally discovered in the Prakonchay district (now part of Chalerm Phra Kiat district) in the Buriram province of Thailand. The artifacts were allegedly smuggled out of the country in 1964 and later linked to controversial art dealer Douglas Latchford. The works are estimated to be 1,300 years old. 'The museum takes requests for the return of objects believed to have been stolen very seriously,' Rob Mintz, chief curatorial director of the Asian Art Museum, told the Chronicle. 'The return of these sculptures to Thailand has taken many months of research and careful consideration. We are happy to have played a role in seeing these works return to their rightful owners." David Keller of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Investigations informed Thai officials on Saturday, April 26, that the museum had removed the items from its registry, according to Phanombootra Chandrajoti, director-general of Thailand's Fine Arts Department. Thai and U.S. authorities are now working to coordinate their safe return. This is not the first return of objects by the Asian Art Museum. In 2021, the museum repatriated two 10th and 11th-century sandstone lintels to Thailand following a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The works had been part of the museum's collection since the 1960s and were initially purchased by European dealers. The Asian Art Museum's fall 2024 exhibition 'Moving Objects: Learning from Local and Global Communities' sought to examine questions of cultural heritage, ownership and restitution. The show featured what the museum called a 'case study' of four ancient bronze sculptures originating from northeastern Thailand that are also in the process of being repatriated. The works were believed to have been stolen before they came into the possession of the Asian Art Museum in the 1960s. 'We anticipate the joy of the people of Thailand in welcoming these sculptures back home, and look forward to building collaborative, equitable, and generative relations with Thailand in the future,' said Natasha Riechle, the museum's associate curator of Southeast Asian Art. The sculptures are among 32 artifacts formally requested by the Thai government in a 2019 diplomatic appeal. Their recovery is the result of years of documentation and collaboration led by Thailand's Committee for the Retrieval of Overseas Antiquities. 'I never imagined they would be sold overseas,' Samak Promlak, one of six villagers who discovered the artifacts decades ago, told Khaosod. 'They belong to the Thai people.'
