Alabama Men Arrested on Criminal Solicitation of a Minor and Related Charges

(COLUMBIA, S.C.) - South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson announced the arrest of Christopher Branum Hulsey, 31, of New Market, AL, and Joel Barton Hutcheson, 36, of Northport, AL on seven total charges connected to the attempted sexual exploitation of a minor. Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) investigators with the Mount Pleasant Police Department made the arrests in these unrelated cases. Investigators with the U.S. Marshals Service, also a member of the state's ICAC Task Force, and the Tuscaloosa Police Department assisted with this multistate cooperative investigation. 

Investigators state Hulsey 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.

Investigators state Hutcheson solicited a person he believed to be a minor for sex. 

Hulsey was arrested on August 2, 2022. He is charged with three counts of criminal solicitation of a minor (§16-15-342), a felony offense punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment on each count, and one count of attempted dissemination of obscene material to a person under the age of eighteen (§16-15-345), a felony offense punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment.

Hutcheson was arrested on August 2, 2022. He is charged with three counts of criminal solicitation of a minor (§16-15-342), a felony offense punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment on each count.

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.