COLUMBIA – Fairfield County resident Jonathan David Neel, 23, was arrested on Thursday, Aug. 5 and charged with 19 counts connected to the exploitation of minors.
Investigators received a CyberTipline report from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which led them to Neel. According to investigators, Neel solicited a minor for sex, encouraged them to produce child sexual abuse material, distributed child sexual abuse material, possessed child sexual abuse material, and distributed nude images to a minor.
Neel is charged with four counts of criminal solicitation of a minor, a felony offense punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment on each count; three counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, first degree, a felony offense punishable by up to 20 years imprisonment on each count; three counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, second degree, a felony offense punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment on each count; eight counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, third degree, a felony offense punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment on each count; and one count of disseminating obscene material to a person under age eighteen, a felony offense punishable by up to ten years imprisonment.
Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force investigators with the Attorney General’s Office made the arrest. Investigators with the Fairfield County Sheriff’s Office and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), both also members of the state’s ICAC Task Force, as well as the Fairfax (VA) County Police Department, Tuscaloosa (AL) Police Department, and National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) also assisted in this multistate cooperative investigation. The case will be prosecuted by South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson’s Office.
Wilson stressed all defendants are presumed innocent unless and until they are proven guilty in a court of law.
Thank you for reporting this. We need to be ever alert, and brave enough to report our observations .