Aiken County Man Arrested on Criminal Solicitation of a Minor and Related Charges

(COLUMBIA, S.C.) - South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson announced the arrest of Johnathan Mackie Bryant, 27, of Warrenville, S.C., on seven charges connected to the attempted sexual exploitation of a minor. Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force investigators with the Lexington County Sheriff's Department made the arrest. 

Investigators state Bryant solicited a person he believed to be a minor for sex and sent sexually explicit images to a person he believed to be a minor.

Bryant was arrested on September 5, 2023. He is charged with four counts of criminal solicitation of a minor (§16-15-342), a felony offense punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment on each count; and three counts of attempted dissemination of obscene material to a person under age eighteen (§16-15-345), a felony offense punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment on each count.

This case 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.