Attorney General Alan Wilson announces Upstate man gets 28 years for sex crimes against children

(COLUMBIA, S.C.) – Attorney General Alan Wilson announced that an Upstate man charged with several sex crimes against children pleaded guilty today and was sentenced to 28 years in prison. Judge Jessica A. Salvini sentenced Jonathan Charping in Anderson County. Charping pleaded guilty to one count of Criminal Sexual Conduct with a Minor, First Degree, and one count of Sexual Exploitation of a Minor, First Degree, from Orangeburg County, and two counts of Sexual Exploitation of a Minor, Third Degree, from Anderson County.

On May 11^th, 2022, the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office received a cybertip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children regarding the uploading of seven Child Sexual Abuse files to an online account. Further investigation led the Sheriff’s office to Charping’s home in Anderson. A search warrant was executed at the home, and Charping was taken into investigative detention. After being read his Miranda rights, Charping admitted that numerous images and videos of Child Sexual Abuse Material would be found on his cell phone, in a hidden compartment. A search of his cell phone revealed thousands of files of Child Sexual Abuse Material, including a self-created video showing the sexual assault of a two-month-old child. Metadata on the video provided a GPS location of Orangeburg County as the location of the assault. At that time, the case was referred to Investigator John Stuke with the Orangeburg County Sheriff’s Office. Law enforcement was able to determine that Charping had stayed in Orangeburg around the time of the recording, and that was the location of the sexual assault.

Judge Salvini sentenced Charping to 28 years at the South Carolina Department of Corrections. He received credit for 1,013 days. He will have to register as a Tier 3 Sex Offender and is subject to lifetime GPS monitoring upon his release.

It should be noted that this case is the perfect example of how the South Carolina Attorney General’s ICAC Task Force works together as a team to cross jurisdictions and identify and save children around our state. Representatives from both the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office and the Orangeburg County Sheriff’s Office were in the courtroom in support of the victim in this case.