Philadelphia Man Arrested on Child Sexual Abuse Material* and Related Charges in Joint Investigation

(COLUMBIA, S.C.) - South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson announced the arrest of Marcus Harris-Chain, 31, of Philadelphia, PA, on four charges connected to the sexual exploitation of minors.  Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force investigators with the Charleston Police Department made the arrest. Investigators with the Philadelphia Police Department also assisted in this multistate cooperative investigation.

Investigators state Harris-Chain solicited a minor for sex, encouraged a minor to produce child sexual abuse material,  and sent sexually explicit images to a minor.

Harris-Chain was arrested on April 5, 2021 by authorities in Pennsylvania and extradited to Charleston County on May 27, 2022. He is charged with one count of criminal solicitation of a minor (§16-3-342), a felony offense punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment; two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, first degree (§16-15-395), a felony offense punishable by up to 20 years imprisonment on each count; and one count of disseminating obscene material to a person under age eighteen (§16-15-345), a felony offense punishable by up to ten years imprisonment.

The 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.