UPDATED: Family 'Devastated' by Child Porn Charge, Suspect's Wife Says

Updated 12:37 p.m. Friday, March 9

Brenda Ratcliff, wife of the Wheaton College professor accused of downloading and sharing child pornography, issued the following statement to Patch, via email:

"My children and I have felt strongly from the moment of Don's arrest that he needs to remain in the DuPage County Jail.  We have not nor will we assist in any fashion in his release.  We are devastated by the allegations against him. We fear for his safety as well as our own should he be released."

Confronted with child pornography charges, Wheaton College professor Donald Ratcliff “intellectually rationalized” the reasons he downloaded, viewed and shared explicit videos featuring girls as young as three-years-old, according to prosecutors.

Ratcliff, 60, of Carol Stream, told investigators it was “potentially therapeutic” and a “healthy alternative” to adult pornography. He also said research in Europe determined viewing such images was a way to avoid becoming a pedophile.

“He indicated he felt he had a problem with child pornography, but it was not an addiction,” Assistant State’s Attorney Anne Therieau said during a Thursday court hearing at which Ratcliff sought a bail reduction. “He indicated his behavior, for the most part, is moral.”

Ratcliff is being held in DuPage County Jail , following an undercover operation conducted by the Carol Stream Police Department. Arguing to reduce Ratcliff’s bail from $750,000 to $100,000, his attorney, Dan Collins, said his client has the support of his family and his church.

“This has shaken his family to its core,” Collins said.

Judge John Kinsella called the initial bail amount “extremely high” for a case where probation is a possible sentence. He reduced Ratcliff’s bail to $300,000. If he is able to post bond to be released, Ratcliff is barred from any Internet usage or contact with anyone under the age of 18, and would be placed on GPS monitoring. Kinsella noted that even attending a Sunday church service where children are present would be a violation of Ratcliff’s bond.

Therieau spent several minutes offering a detailed overview of the materials recovered from computers and DVDs at Ratcliff’s home last month after investigators tracked downloads of child pornography to Ratcliff’s computer.

Among the five computer hard drives and hundreds of DVDs recovered, investigators found images and videos of child rape, fondling and sexually suggestive dancing by girls as young as preschool age. He would download materials through a file-sharing service and masturbate before “wiping” his computer hard drive clean of the videos, Therieau explained.

Therieau said Ratcliff’s college-aged daughter told police she became alarmed when she discovered nude images on her computer. Ratcliff reportedly said he downloaded, but forgot to completely erase, the pictures.

Police also found a handwritten journal belonging to Ratcliff in which he wrote it was “safer and better” to view nude images of pre-pubescent girls, compared to adult pornography, because it helped to avoid temptation, Therieau told Kinsella.

"He admitted to downloading child pornography ... because he was curious about it," Therieau said, noting he later felt "evil" about it.

Ratcliff, who is on administrative leave from Wheaton college, appeared to be constructing a new computer, after his others had been confiscated for the investigation, when police arrived to arrest him. He told police “killing himself was the easiest way out” and was hospitalized briefly at that time, Therieau said.

According to a March 7 statement from Wheaton College, in December 2010, Ratcliff resigned. The resignation would have been effective June 30, 2012. His interim replacement for the 2012-13 year was hired several weeks ago.

"As a Christian community, we find pornography morally objectionable. Our Community Covenant states, in part, ‘Scripture condemns … sexual immorality, such as the use of pornography…’ Child pornography, by its very nature, always involves victimization of the most vulnerable, and thus is particularly abhorrent," the statement read.

Without conceding Ratcliff’s guilt, Collins said prosecutors had a “strong circumstantial case.” He emphasized Ratcliff was in need of a psycho-sexual evaluation to begin treatment for whatever psychological issues his client is suffering from.

Ratcliff is scheduled to return to court on March 26 for arraignment.