A Chicago man who is a convicted child sex offender is facing federal charges after agents found child pornography playing on a cellphone in his home, according to newly-released court records. The charges follow an undercover investigation that included online chats between the man and a covert FBI employee, federal authorities said.
Joseph Werwath, 36, is charged with one count of possession of child pornography. If convicted, he faces 10 to 20 years in prison.
In 2009, Werwath was charged and later convicted of sexually abusing a 14-year-old McHenry County girl.
Federal agents who executed a search warrant June 17 at Werwath’s home found child pornography playing on a cellphone in a bedroom, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago. Investigators allegedly found about 40 additional videos depicting child pornography on the phone.
Investigators began looking at Werwath after he exchanged chat messages with a covert online employee via the LiveMe phone app, according to an affidavit filed by FBI agent Anna Doyle in support of the agency’s search warrant.
The chats took place between November 18 and November 20 last year and again on February 12 this year, according to Doyle.
Werwath, using the screen name “VampireDaddy69” shared child pornography in a LiveMe chat group and expressed an interest in traveling to have sex with the undercover investigator’s fictitious 9-year-old niece, Doyle wrote.
“That’s adorable age,” VampireDaddy69 wrote. “I’m not active with kids but wish I had the oppertunity [sic]. Maybe one day.”
Later, VampireDaddy69 told the covert federal worker in a chat that he had to be careful because he’d “been to prison oce already for a sx offense. I make the wrong mistake they gonna bury me under the jail.”
“I guess this could be tje best or worth thing ever,” VampireDaddy69 wrote.
He then told the investigator he might “ask on the dark web how other pedos” verify that people like the covert fed aren’t cops. “It usually requires a few meets ar least before the actual party day.”
In February, Werwath used the screen name “Vampire Daddy Dom” to share 30 child pornography videos online, Doyle said in her affidavit.
Investigators compiled information from Google, T-Mobile, and other corporations to identify Werwath as the person behind the “Vampire Daddy” screen names, Doyle wrote.
Federal documents do not list Werwath’s most recent home address, but he previously lived in Evanston and on the city’s North Side, according to state records.
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