Greenville Men Arrested on Child Sexual Abuse Material* Charges

(COLUMBIA, S.C.) - South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson announced the arrest of Michael Dean Simpson, 68, and Colton Christopher Webb, 29, of Greenville, S.C., on five total charges connected to the sexual exploitation of minors. Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force investigators with the Greenville County Sheriff's Office made the arrests in these unrelated cases. Investigators with the Attorney General's Office, also a member of the state's ICAC Task Force, assisted with these investigations.

Investigators received a CyberTipline report from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) which led them to Webb. Investigators state Simpson and Webb both possessed files of child sexual abuse material.

Simpson was arrested on December 21, 2022. He is charged with one count of sexual exploitation of a minor, third degree (§16-15-410), a felony offense punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment.

Webb was arrested on December 29, 2022.  He is charged with four counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, third degree (§16-15-410), a felony offense punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment on each count.

Both of these cases 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.