Muscogee County Woman Arrested for the Sexual Exploitation of Children

Columbus, GA (May 24, 2022) – On Saturday, May 21, 2022, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s Child Exploitation and Computer Crimes (CEACC) Unit, with the assistance of the Muscogee County Sheriff’s Office, and the GBI Columbus field office, executed a residential search warrant pertaining to an ongoing sexual exploitation of children investigation. The investigation began after the GBI CEACC Unit received information from the Cyber Crimes Unit of the Bergen County, New Jersey Prosecutor’s Office involving a subject in Muscogee County, GA, possessing, manufacturing, and/or distributing explicit child sexual abuse material, commonly referred to as child pornography.

As a result of the search warrant execution, the following individual was arrested:

Townes Ward Borum, age 37, of Columbus, GA, was charged with Sexual Exploitation of Children (Possession of Child Pornography), Sexual Exploitation of Children (Distribution of Child Pornography), Sexual Exploitation of Children (Production of Child Pornography), and Trafficking of a Person for Sexual Servitude. 

Borum was taken to the Muscogee County Jail.

This investigation is part of the ongoing effort by the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force, housed within the GBI’s Child Exploitation and Computer Crimes Unit, to identify those involved in the child pornography trade. The ICAC Program, created by the U.S. Department of Justice, 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.

Anyone with information about other cases of child exploitation is asked to contact the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Child Exploitation and Computer Crimes Unit at 404-270-8870. Tips can also be submitted by calling 1-800-597-TIPS(8477), online at https://gbi.georgia.gov/submit-tips-online, or by downloading the See Something, Send Something mobile app.