PEORIA — A 36-year-old Glasford man was sentenced Thursday to a total of 50 years in prison on two federal child pornography charges.

Benjamin C. Lascelles was sentenced to 360 months of prison for producing and 240 months for possessing child pornography, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of Illinois said in a news release. The sentences are be served consecutively, followed by a lifetime term of supervised release. Lascelles must also register as a sex offender once he is released.

At a hearing Thursday before U.S. District Judge James E. Shadid, the government presented evidence that Lascelles video recorded and photographed himself sexually assaulting two children, ages 8 and 6, on multiple occasions in December 2019. In February 2020, officers with the Peoria County Sheriff’s Office and the Secret Service searched Lascelles’ residence and seized his electronic devices. A forensic review of the devices showed Lascelles had produced 90 images and eight videos of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct, including videos of himself engaged in sex acts with a prepubescent minor.

Shadid discounted Lascelles’ insistence that he was not sexually interested in children and had no recollection of the conduct he was being sentenced for due to his excessive alcohol use, the release said.

Lascelles was arrested in February 2020. He pleaded guilty to sexual exploitation of a minor and possession of child pornography in November 2022.

Lascelles' sentence will be served concurrently with a case filed in Peoria County where he pleaded guilty to predatory criminal sexual assault and aggravated criminal sexual assault and was sentenced to 48 years and seven years in prison, respectively.

This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Glasford, Illinois, man gets 50 years for production, possession of child porn