Anderson man arrested on Child Sexual Abuse Material* and related charges

(COLUMBIA, S.C.) - South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson announced the arrest of Christopher Lee Hagood, 45, of Anderson, S.C., on three charges connected to the sexual exploitation of a minor. Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force investigators with the Anderson County Sheriff's Office made the arrest. Investigators with the Attorney General's Office, also members of the state's ICAC Task Force, assisted with the investigation.

Investigators received a CyberTipline report from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), which led them to Hagood. Investigators state Hagood distributed files of child sexual abuse material and sent sexually explicit images to a minor.

Hagood was arrested on March 10, 2025. He is charged with two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, second degree (§16-15-405), a felony offense punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment on each count; and one count of dissemination of obscene material to a person under age twelve (§16-15-355), a felony offense punishable by up to 15 years imprisonment.

Hagood is still in jail from a similar arrest in 2024. These new charges are from a CyberTip made before he was arrested in 2024.

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.