Lowcountry Men Arrested on Child Sexual Abuse Material* Charges

(COLUMBIA, S.C.) - South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson announced the arrest of Bobby L. Knight Jr., 69, of  Goose Creek, S.C., and Zachary Addison Acard, 36, of North Charleston, S.C., on 19 total charges connected to the sexual exploitation of minors. Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force investigators with the Goose Creek Police Department and Charleston County Sheriff's Office made the arrests in these unrelated cases. Investigators with the Attorney General's Office, Homeland Security Investigations, U.S. Marshals Service, and South Carolina Department of Probation, Parole, and Pardon Services, all also members of the state's ICAC Task Force, assisted with these investigations.

Investigators received CyberTipline reports from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) which led them to both Knight and Acard. Investigators state both Knight and Acard distributed and possessed files of child sexual abuse material.  

Knight was arrested on April 20, 2023. 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 nine 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.

Acard was arrested on April 21, 2023. He is charged with three counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, second degree (§16-15-405), a felony offense punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment on each count; 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.

Acard was previously convicted in New York on related charges in 2015.

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.