MAY 19, 2022

Bluffton Man Arrested on Child Sexual Abuse Material* and Related Charges

(COLUMBIA, S.C.) - South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson announced the arrest of Michael Charles Ford, 51, of Bluffton, S.C., on four charges connected to the attempted sexual exploitation of a minor. Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) investigators with the Mount Pleasant Police Department made the arrest. 

 

Investigators state Ford 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.

 

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

 

 

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.

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