Attorney General Alan Wilson announces Berkeley Co. man sentenced to 20 years for the sexual exploitation of minors and criminal sexual conduct

(COLUMBIA, S.C.) – South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson announced that Wesley Kendall Smith, 43, pleaded guilty to Sexual Exploitation of a Minor - 1^st Degree, Criminal Sexual Conduct - 3^rd Degree, and Dissemination of Obscene Material to a Person Under 18 on September 22, before the Honorable Deadra Jefferson in Berkeley County.

In February 2020, Wesley Smith began using multiple fake social media accounts to communicate with teenage girls. One of those victims was an individual who was previously known to Smith and to whom he had given a cell phone. During one of those conversations, Smith posed as a teenage boy and convinced one victim to send him an explicit photo of herself. After she did so, he used another fake account to threaten to publish those images if she did not allow a male, unknown to her at the time to be Smith himself, to perform various sexual acts on her. Smith photographed himself performing these acts on the victim and his wedding ring and an identifying scar were visible in those photographs. The victim reported the incident to the St. Stephen Police Department, which contacted the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office for assistance with the investigation. Upon receiving the social media records for all the accounts associated with Smith’s phone number, Special Investigator Lucinda McKellar discovered an additional teenage girl to whom Smith had sent adult pornography.

Judge Jefferson sentenced Wesley Smith to 18 years in the South Carolina Department of Corrections for the Sexual Exploitation of a Minor - 1^st Degree. She further sentenced him to two years each for the charges of Dissemination of Obscene Material to a Person Under 18 and Criminal Sexual Conduct - 3^rd Degree. Those two-year sentences will be served concurrently with each other but consecutively to the 18-year sentence, for a total of 20 years in prison. He will be required to register as a sex offender upon his eventual release.

Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Wells prosecuted the case.