CHARLOTTE – “A convicted sex offender was sentenced today to 37 years in prison and a lifetime of supervised release for producing child sexual abuse material (CSAM),” announced Lawrence J. Cameron, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina.
Jesse Thomas Cunningham, 30, of Morven, N.C., was also ordered to register as a sex offender after he is released from prison.
Robert M. DeWitt, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Charlotte Division, Cardell T. Morant, Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in North Carolina and South Carolina, Roger “Chip” Hawley, Director of the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation (SBI), and Sheriff Scott Howell of the Anson County Sheriff’s Office, joined Acting U.S. Attorney Cameron in making this announcement.
According to court documents and court proceedings, in 2021, Cunningham assumed the identity of a minor on Snapchat to communicate with an 11-year-old female.
Court records show Cunningham induced the minor to send him sexually explicit images and videos of herself via Snapchat. Over the course of his communications with the minor victim, Cunningham gained access to the victim’s Snapchat account and used it to persuade two other minor females to create and send him images and videos of themselves engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
According to court records, on December 7, 2021, law enforcement obtained a search warrant for Cunningham’s phone. A forensic examination of the phone revealed that Cunningham possessed CSAM, including images and videos of the three minor victims he had contacted via Snapchat.
During the investigation, law enforcement also found evidence that Cunningham had coerced the minor victims, threatening to expose them publicly online if they did not comply with his demands for additional CSAM. Cunningham has prior criminal convictions of Possessing Obscenity With Intent to Disseminate, Attempting to Extort Another, Felony Secret Peeping, and Indecent Liberties with a Child.
On October 11, 2024, Cunningham pleaded guilty to producing CSAM. Cunningham will remain in federal custody until he is transferred to the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
The FBI, HSI, SBI and the Anson County Sheriff’s Office investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Nick J. Miller with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Charlotte prosecuted the case. This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Justice Department.
Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and CEOS, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, visit www.justice.gov/psc.