(COLUMBIA, S.C.) – July 30, 2021 – South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson announced the arrest of Hunter Blake West, 21, of Cassatt, S.C., on five charges connected to the attempted sexual exploitation of a minor.  Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force investigators with the Kershaw County Sheriff’s Office made the arrest.  Investigators with the Attorney General’s Office and U.S. Secret Service, both also members of the state’s ICAC Task Force, assisted with this investigation.

Investigators received a CyberTipline report from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) which led them to West.  Investigators state West solicited a person he believed to be a minor for sex, encouraged them to produce child sexual abuse material, distributed multiple files of child sexual abuse material, and sent sexually explicit images to a person he believed to be a minor. 

West was arrested on July 30, 2021.  He is charged with one count of criminal solicitation of a minor (§16-15-342), a felony offense punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment; one count of attempted sexual exploitation of a minor, first degree (§16-15-395), a felony offense punishable by up to 20 years imprisonment; two 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 one count of attempted disseminating obscene material to a person under age eighteen (§16-15-345), a felony offense punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment.

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.