An Illinois man was charged after he admitted to police he picked up a then 15-year-old girl from the Crown Point YMCA for sex acts, according to an affidavit.
Wesley Ratliff, 33, was charged with three counts of sexual misconduct with a minor and one count of child solicitation.
He is not in custody. When arrested, he is ordered held without bail.
Crown Point Police opened the investigation March 2 after Tazewell County, Illinois Sheriff’s Detective Mitchell Filarski called them in February for help with identifying the victim. He caught Ratliff with child pornography and only knew the girl’s first name.
A school resource officer helped to identify her to police, records show.
Court records state Ratliff drove on May 11, 2025 to the YMCA, 100 W Burrell Dr., to pick up the girl, then took her to a nearby church. He admitted giving her a vape, before he groped her, then she performed a sex act.
He asked her to call him “daddy” and said he was into “daddy/daughter role play,” the affidavit states.
He met her through Instagram two weeks earlier, charges state. The girl told him she was 15.
In a police interview, Ratliff admitted he sent the girl a sexually explicit picture. In messages, she asked for four e-cigarettes. What’s in it for me, he replied. After the encounter, he sent a sexual follow-up message, which police later found.
He never saw her again.
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The girl said she didn’t remember due to “drug” and “alcohol” use. Police discounted her story.
Her mother said she was a victim in a similar Lake County case in November 2025. The girl didn’t have a cell phone after it was seized in that case, she said.