Prairie State Wire

A Peoria man, Michael Dean Dupoy, 53, has been sentenced to a total of 20 years in federal prison for possession of child pornography. U.S. District Judge Jonathan E. Hawley handed down the sentence on August 20, 2025. Dupoy will also serve a lifetime term of supervised release following his imprisonment.

Dupoy was already on supervised release for a previous conviction related to receipt of child pornography from 2008, for which he had served 220 months in prison and was under lifetime supervision. In early October 2024, Dupoy began his supervised release. Later that month, during a visit to his residence, a United States Probation Officer discovered a SanDisk Model 512GB Micro SD card. Although Dupoy claimed it only contained movies, the officer seized the card for analysis.

While awaiting results from the analysis, the probation officer visited again in December 2024 and found that Dupoy possessed an unmonitored cellular phone—a violation of his supervised release conditions. Subsequent examination of both the SD card and phone revealed 482 images and 58 videos containing child sexual abuse material. The devices also held photos of children who had visited the store where Dupoy worked.

Dupoy was arrested in December 2024 due to these violations. A federal grand jury indicted him on new charges in February 2025, and he pleaded guilty in April 2025. He has remained in custody since his arrest.

At sentencing, Judge Hawley addressed Dupoy’s criminal history and noted that “nothing to think [that Dupoy] would not immediately engage in this behavior again” and said that “the surest way to deter” further offenses was incarceration. The judge stated that Dupoy needed “to be removed from society to protect the public.”

Because of his prior conviction, statutory penalties for possession of child pornography included between ten and twenty years’ imprisonment with five years to life on supervised release.

The investigation involved the United States Probation Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Springfield Field Office. Criminal Chief Darilynn J. Knauss prosecuted the case.

This prosecution is part of Project Safe Childhood, an initiative by the Department of Justice aimed at combating child sexual exploitation through coordinated efforts among federal, state, and local agencies nationwide (more information available at www.projectsafechildhood.gov).