Beech Island Man Arrested on Criminal Solicitation of a Minor and Related Charges

(COLUMBIA, S.C.) - South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson announced the arrest of Robert Lynn Starnes, II, 47, of Beech Island, S.C., on two charges connected to the solicitation of a minor. Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force investigators with the Cayce Police Department made the arrest. Investigators with the Attorney General's Office and Aiken County Sheriff's Office, both also members of the state's ICAC Task Force, assisted with this investigation.

Investigators state Starnes solicited a person he believed to be a minor for sex and sent a sexually explicit image to someone be believed to be a minor.

Starnes was arrested on January 26, 2022. He is charged with one count of attempted criminal solicitation of a minor (§16-15-342), a felony offense punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment; and one count of attempted disseminating obscene material to a person under age eighteen (§16-15-345), a felony offense punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment.

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.