A 69-year-old man who lists his address at the Lake Waccamaw RV Park in Columbus County is now locked up in Brunswick County, held without bond on a single charge of taking indecent liberties with a minor. Patrick Anthony Keese is accused of committing lewd and lascivious acts with a girl younger than 16, according to detention reports and warrants tied to his case.
The warrant against Keese was drawn not by local Columbus County authorities but by the Leland Police Department, which patrols a fast-growing town of more than 30,000 residents roughly 27 square miles in size in northern Brunswick County, according to the Town of Leland. That cross-county reach is what pulled Keese, an RV park resident more than an hour away, into Brunswick County's justice system, as first reported by Columbus County News.
Booking records show Keese was first processed by the Columbus County Sheriff's Office on August 14 at 10:51 p.m. under Booking ID 97564, before he was handed off to Brunswick County custody, per detention logs shared on Facebook by the Columbus County Ledger. He is now being held at the Brunswick County Detention Center in Bolivia, a 68,000-square-foot facility built in 2005 with room for more than 440 inmates, according to the Brunswick County Sheriff's Office.
No Bond, No Hearing Date Yet
Keese's case carries a single charge, but it is a serious one under state law. North Carolina classifies taking indecent liberties with a child as a Class F felony, punishable by 10 to 59 months in active prison time depending on a defendant's prior record, according to the North Carolina General Assembly. A conviction would also require Keese to register as a sex offender for at least 30 years and would bar him from living within 1,000 feet of a school or childcare facility, per the Patrick Roberts Law Blog.
Because he is being held without bond, North Carolina criminal procedure rules require a District Court or Superior Court judge, rather than a magistrate, to set or review his pretrial release conditions on a felony sex charge involving a minor, according to guidance from the UNC School of Government. It remains unclear exactly when that bond review will happen. Also unresolved: where the alleged offense took place and what relationship, if any, existed between Keese and the girl.
What the Charge Requires Under State Law
Indecent liberties charges in North Carolina do not require physical contact to hold up in court. Non-contact lewd conduct performed in front of a minor under 16 for sexual gratification can satisfy the legal standard, as long as the defendant is at least 16 and at least five years older than the alleged victim, according to the UNC School of Government. Separately, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled in *State v. Calderon* in December 2025 that courts must apply a “distinct interruption test” to determine whether multiple acts in a single encounter can support separate counts, a decision that reaffirmed how prosecutors structure these charges statewide, per the same UNC School of Government research.
Local Advocacy Resources in Columbus County
Child abuse and sexual offense investigations involving minors in Columbus County typically run through Carolyn's Kaleidoscope Child Advocacy Center in Lake Waccamaw, an accredited program of Boys & Girls Homes of North Carolina that provides forensic interviews and trauma services for victims ages 3 to 17. Hoodline previously reported on a Riegelwood case that also involved the same advocacy center, underscoring how frequently the region's investigators lean on that resource.
Keese's arrest adds to a string of recent indecent liberties cases across eastern North Carolina, including a 72-year-old Dover man charged under the same statute and an 81-year-old Holly Ridge resident accused in a separate child sex abuse case. For now, Keese remains in the Brunswick County Detention Center as the case moves toward a bond review, with the central questions of location, relationship, and timing still unanswered.
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