(COLUMBIA, S.C.) – May 5, 2021 – South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson announced the arrest of William Javier Velasquez, 20, of Mount Pleasant, S.C., Anthony Ray Massey, 27, of Louisville, KY, and Christopher Alan Wilbourn, 33, of Lexington, S.C., on six total charges connected to the sexual exploitation of minors.  Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force investigators with the Mount Pleasant Police Department made the arrests in these unrelated cases.  Investigators with the Attorney General’s Office and Charleston County Sheriff’s Office, both also members of the state’s ICAC Task Force, assisted with these investigations.

Investigators received a CyberTipline report from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) which led them to Velasquez.  Investigators state Velasquez distributed child sexual abuse material.  Investigators state both Massey and Wilbourn solicited and traveled to meet a person they believed to be a minor for sex.  Wilbourn also sent sexually explicit images to a person be believed to be a minor.

Velazquez was arrested on April 30, 2021. He is charged with one count of sexual exploitation of a minor, second degree (§16-15-405), a felony offense punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment.

Massey was arrested on April 30, 2021. He is charged with one count of criminal solicitation of a minor (§16-15-342), a felony offense punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment; and one count of attempted criminal sexual conduct with a minor (§16-3-655). 

Wilbourn was arrested on May 4, 2021. He is charged with one count of criminal solicitation of a minor (§16-15-342), a felony offense punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment; one count of attempted criminal sexual conduct with a minor (§16-3-655); and one count of attempted disseminating obscene material to a person under age eighteen (§16-15-345), a felony offense punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment.

These cases will be prosecuted by the Attorney General’s Office.

Attorney General Wilson stressed all defendants are presumed innocent unless and until they are proven guilty in a court of law.

* Child sexual abuse material, or CSAM, is a more accurate reflection of the material involved in these heinous and abusive crimes. “Pornography” can imply the child was a consenting participant.  Globally, the term child pornography is being replaced by CSAM for this reason.