One Man Arrested for the Sexual Exploitation of Children in Peach County

Byron, GA (March 22, 2022) – On Thursday, March 17, 2022, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s Child Exploitation and Computer Crimes (CEACC) Unit, with the assistance of the Peach County Sheriff’s Office, the GBI Perry Office, and the GBI Middle Georgia Gang Task Force, executed a residential search warrant pertaining to an ongoing Sexual Exploitation of Children investigation. The investigation began after the GBI CEACC Unit received a cybertip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). The cybertip involved the possession and/or distribution of explicit child sexual abuse material, commonly referred to as child pornography, which resolved to Peach County, GA.

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

Michael Mathis, age 64, of Byron, Georgia, charged with one count of Sexual Exploitation of Children (Possession of Child Pornography)

Mathis was taken to the Peach 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.