JONES COUNTY, Ga. — We have new details in the case of a Jones County deputy accused of sexual exploitation of children.
Brian Johnston is the special agent in charge of the GBI Child Exploitation and Computer Crimes Unit. He says last year in Georgia, people reported more than 21,000 cyber tips that involved child pornography and child exploitation. The latest suspect is former Jones County Deputy Kevin Harden.
"We have seen a substantial progressive increase in the number of cyber tips in Georgia and throughout the country for a number of years," Johnston said.
The GBI task force that investigates internet crimes against children helped with the case against a Jones County deputy. Brian Johnston attributes the increase to a number of technological reasons -- companies now have more ways to monitor their service, and internet providers are required by law to report child exploitation.
"Viewing, distributing them, manufacturing them. Also, just from having sexually-explicit conversations between adults and children as well. In this particular case, we did receive, actually, several cyber tips from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children," Johnston said.
An arrest warrant says former Deputy Kevin Harden possessed four pornographic videos.
"What people need to understand is that these are just not pictures. These are actual images of a child being raped and being sexually-abused," He said.
The warrant says they show at least four naked children in sexual situations and show two adults molesting them. Sheriff Butch Reece says he fired Kevin Harden Thursday then took him into custody. He said Harden's been with his office since 2017.
"One of the most important things that we do is we want to protect the children in these investigations that have been victimized, and we don't want to re-victimize them again in the process," Johnston said.
Reece declined further comment on the case Friday, but in his Facebook post, Reece offered prayers for the children and families affected by the case and said, "There's a special place in Hell for people who harm or exploit children."