Lexington County Men Arrested on Child Sexual Abuse Material* Charges

(COLUMBIA, S.C.) - South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson announced the arrest of Tyron Demarcus Napleon Wise, 30, of Lexington, S.C., Drew Carson Alexander, 30, of Cayce, S.C., and Hatwell Tyler Keenum, 36, of Batesburg, S.C., on 11 total charges connected to the sexual exploitation of minors. Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force investigators with the Lexington 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 both Alexander and Keenum. Investigators state Alexander distributed and possessed child sexual abuse material and Keenum distributed files of child sexual abuse material.

Investigators state Wise sent sexually explicit images to a person he believed to be a minor.

Alexander was arrested on July 26, 2022. He is charged with one count of sexual exploitation of a minor, second degree (§16-15-405), a felony offense punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment; and six 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.

Keenum was arrested on July 20, 2022. He is charged with three 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.

Wise was arrested on July 26, 2022. He is charged with one count of disseminating obscene material to a person under age eighteen (§16-15-345), a felony offense punishable by up to 10 years

All three 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.