A 43-year-old Inman man was arrested in Spartanburg County on September 25 after investigators say a national tip about child sexual abuse material led them to him. David Mark Guy now faces three counts of third-degree sexual exploitation of a minor; authorities say he possessed files of child sexual abuse material.
According to the South Carolina Attorney General's Office, investigators received a CyberTipline report from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that led them to Guy. The office says he possessed files of child sexual abuse material and that he was arrested on September 25 in Spartanburg County. The Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office and Homeland Security Investigations both assisted in the investigation, and the state Attorney General's Office is prosecuting the case, per the same report.
How a National Tip Line Becomes a Local Arrest
The CyberTipline that flagged Guy's case is the same system that generates the overwhelming majority of child exploitation leads nationwide. In 2025 alone, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children's CyberTipline received 21.3 million reports containing 61.8 million individual files, according to MissingKids.org. That flood of digital evidence is part of why the organization launched a three-year, $10 million CyberTipline Modernization Initiative, aimed at upgrading data processing infrastructure so actionable reports reach local police faster.
Cases like Guy's typically move through Internet Crimes Against Children task forces, which pool resources from the state Attorney General's Office, local sheriff's departments, the State Law Enforcement Division, and federal partners such as Homeland Security Investigations, according to the Law Office of James R. Snell, Jr. Guy's investigation involved local, state, and federal agencies.
Why Third-Degree Charges and Not Production or Distribution
South Carolina law splits sexual exploitation of a minor into three felony tiers: first degree for producing material, second degree for distributing or reproducing it, and third degree for simple possession, per attorneys at whitecollarattorney.net. Guy's three counts fall under that third tier, which under South Carolina Code § 16-15-410 carries a maximum penalty of up to 10 years in prison per count for possessing visual representations of a minor engaging in sexual activity or explicit nudity, as outlined by Justia Law.
Under the 2026 changes, first-degree sexual exploitation carries a five-year mandatory minimum and second-degree carries a three-year mandatory minimum. Third-degree cases involving more than 25 images carry mandatory minimums based on the image count: one year for 26–250 images and two years for more than 250, with a maximum of 10 years. In qualifying third-degree cases, a judge cannot impose a sentence below the applicable statutory minimum.
A Legal Landscape Lawmakers Just Toughened
Guy's arrest comes just months after South Carolina lawmakers raised the stakes for cases like his. Governor Henry McMaster signed House Bill 4804 into law on May 18, 2026, increasing mandatory minimum prison sentences and establishing enhanced penalties for certain child sexual exploitation offenses charged after that date, the Snell firm's analysis notes. State statutes have also expanded coverage to AI-generated imagery and digitally morphed depictions of identifiable minors, according to the Kent Collins Law Firm.
Spartanburg County has also been the site of child-exploitation investigations.
Guy's case was followed four days later by another Spartanburg arrest, when registered sex offender Michael Anthony Exall was taken into custody on 10 enhanced counts of second-degree sexual exploitation of a minor following a separate CyberTipline investigation. That case, too, stemmed from a tip routed through the same national clearinghouse and involved overlapping local and federal agencies.
