An Atlanta airline employee is facing a felony charge after Coweta County deputies arrested him at his home following an online child-exploitation investigation. Robert Wilkinson was taken into custody after investigators say a tip flagged his computer for suspected illicit material, prompting deputies to wait at his residence as he returned from work.
According to FOX 5 Atlanta, Wilkinson faces one count of sexual exploitation of children. The station reports that investigators waited with an arrest warrant outside his Coweta County home as he appeared to arrive from work late last week, taking him into custody without incident at the scene.
FOX 5 reports the inquiry began after a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children flagged Wilkinson's computer for suspected possession of child pornography or child sexual abuse material. Deputies seized all electronic devices from the home during the arrest, and the station's report says detectives plan to comb through the stored digital data as part of the ongoing case.
No Connection Alleged to His Job
Officials told the outlet that the alleged crimes did not happen at Wilkinson's workplace and were unrelated to his job duties. The report notes he works for an airline based in Atlanta, though it does not identify the specific employer.
The cited cases are not from recent months: the Juan Vasquez case dates to August 2023, and the Justin Lee Teal case dates to March 2020. In one, WSB-TV reported that deputies received a cyber tip from Internet Crimes Against Children on July 18 that led to the August 7 arrest of 23-year-old Juan Vasquez, who faced 12 counts of sexual exploitation of children after deputies responded to an unrelated incident involving him. In another, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Justin Lee Teal, 36, faced 10 counts of child sexual exploitation plus a probation-violation count after the sheriff's office received a tip from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation about possible images on his devices.
A Growing Volume of Tips Nationally
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, whose tip reportedly set off the Wilkinson investigation, has also flagged a broader shift in the kinds of reports it receives. The organization has reported a sharp rise in reports tied to generative AI.
No charging documents or prosecutor statements have been made public to detail the current status of the case against Wilkinson, and no statement from him, an attorney, or his employer has been included in reporting so far. The investigation remains active as detectives continue reviewing the seized devices.
