The following press release was issued by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

On Friday, August 7, 2020, Montgomery County resident Leonard Thad Powell, 44, was charged with one count of Sexual Exploitation of Children (Possession of Child Pornography) and one count of Sexual Exploitation of Children (Distribution of Child Pornography) by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s Child Exploitation and Computer Crimes (CEACC) Unit. This arrest was related to an investigation that began because of several tips pertaining to child sexual abuse material being shared online by Powell. These tips were forwarded to the GBI by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).

Powell is a registered sex offender in Montgomery County. Powell was previously convicted in 2007 for Child Molestation and in 2016 for the Sexual Exploitation of Children. Powell is currently on probation related to the Child Molestation conviction and on parole for the previous conviction for the Sexual Exploitation of Children. Powell is currently in custody of the Montgomery 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 pornography, 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.