Crystal Lake man gets 180 days in jail for secretly filming stepdaughter, possessing mushrooms

A Crystal Lake man who pleaded guilty to secretly videotaping his stepdaughter and possessing mushrooms was sentenced Tuesday to 180 days in jail.

In June, Christopher Hopp, 41, pleaded guilty to unlawfully possessing 50 to 200 grams of psilocybin, a Class 1 felony, and unauthorized video recording, a Class 4 felony, according to McHenry County court records.

Hopp had been out of jail while his trial was pending. He was taken into custody of the county jail following the hearing.

Judge Mark Gerhardt sentenced Hopp to 180 days in county jail on each conviction, to be served concurrently. He is required to serve half the jail time and will receive credit for six days spent in custody following his arrest. The judge also sentenced Hopp to 48 months of probation on the drug charge and 30 months of probation for the unlawful videotaping. He was fined about $9,000 in fines and fees, court records show.

Before announcing the sentence, Gerhardt said the videotaping “was not to protect” the teen, as Hopp claimed. “The evidence belies that” assertion, the judge said.

Tuesday’s outcome brings to a conclusion a sentencing hearing that involved two days of testimony over the course of a few weeks where, each time, about 30 supporters of Hopp were present.

Defense attorneys argued that Hopp, on Jan. 26, 2023, was acting as a concerned father when he placed a camera disguised as a pen in the vanity area of a bathroom where his 16-year-old stepdaughter would have been changing clothes. Hopp and Corinne Breskovich, 44, the girl’s mother and Hopp’s wife, each took the stand and said the camera was a last-ditch effort to protect the girl from harming herself.

In the years leading up to the incident, the teen had attempted suicide and was self harming. Ten days prior, the girl had taken 28 pills in an attempt to kill herself, the couple testified. The girl also was seen on a recorded interview played in court with a forensic interviewer saying she was self-harming and had ingested the pills to kill herself.

Prosecutors in court asserted that Hopp was not acting out of concern for his stepdaughter when he surreptitiously placed the pen camera in the vanity when she was taking a shower. On a video played during the sentencing hearing, Hopp is recorded placing, then removing, the pen camera from the bathroom. The girl, wrapped in a towel, was seen discovering the camera.

She later died of a drug overdose after going to live with her biological father, authorities and her parents said.

The psilocybin possession allegation, with which both parents were charged stemmed from a mushroom-growing operation police said they found in the home.

Hopp and Breskovich were each initially charged with possession and possession with intent to deliver more than 200 grams of psilocybin, Class X felony. However, prosecutors said the psilocybin later weighed in at less than 200 grams explaining the offense being reduced to a Class 1 felony. The couple also had been charged with unlawfully possessing a Remington 12-gauge shotgun, a Taurus PT22 pistol, a Remington long rifle, a Ruger Security-Six revolver, ammunition and shotgun shells, according to McHenry County court documents.

Hopp had also been charged with more serious charges possessing images of the child unclothed, Class X felonies that could have sent him to prison for 30 years. Authorities confiscated nine devices from the couple’s home that did not have any images of the teen or any other child unclothed, likely why those more severe charges were dropped.

In April 2024, Breskovich pleaded guilty to possessing mushrooms and was sentenced to two years of probation. In sentencing Hopp to jail time for the mushroom charge, Gerhardt said Hopp had more of a criminal history than his wife.