State and local authorities have arrested a Putnam County man on charges related to creating child pornography.
According to Putnam County jail reports, Corey Andrew Hickey, 38, of the Twin Bridges Road area, is in Putnam County jail facing felony charges including two counts of “create or possess with intent to distribute or sell visual medium depicting a minor in sexually explicit act,” and one count of “employ/use a minor to engage in/assist person in sexually explicit conduct for visual medium.”
Bond was set at $60,000, but Hickey remained jailed at the newspaper’s press time on Tuesday.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s “Child Exploitation and Computer Crimes (CEACC) Unit began an investigation into Hickey’s online activity after receiving a Cyber Tipline Report from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children,” according to a GBI press release.
GBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Renea Green told The Eatonton Messenger that when the CEACC supervisors reviewed the tip and the evidence, they “determined to escalate the investigation and immediately take action.” She said Hickey was arrested Oct. 21, shortly after the tip was received earlier in October.
“Putnam County Sheriff’s Office and Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office assisted us in locating him in Milledgeville and making the arrest,” she noted. “We rely on and value our working relationship with the local authorities.”
The young victim was identified and is receiving appropriate treatments, Green said.
The investigation is part of ongoing efforts by the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force, which works with the GBI’s CEACC Unit, to identify those involved in the trade of child sexual abuse material.
“The ICAC program was developed in response to the increasing number of children and teenagers using the internet, the proliferation of child sexual abuse material, and the heightened online activity by predators searching for unsupervised contact with underage victims,” the press release explains.