Horry County Man Arrested on Criminal Solicitation of a Minor Charges

(COLUMBIA, S.C.) - South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson announced the arrest of David Michael Cooksey, 37, of Surfside Beach, S.C., on two charges connected to the sexual exploitation of minors. Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force investigators with the Mount Pleasant Police Department made the arrest. Investigators from the Attorney General's Office and U.S. Marshals Service, both also members of the state's ICAC Task Force, assisted with the investigation.  

Investigators state Cooksey solicited a person he believed to be a minor for sex.

Cooksey was arrested on February 20, 2024. 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.

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.