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Shumake, top left, Bales, top right, Fleming, bottom left, Holland, bottom right.
Four men were arrested within the last week on either child exploitation or child molestation charges in separate cases in Hart County.
Two Hartwell men accused of child exploitation in unrelated cases were arrested by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Hart County Sheriff’s Office on April 7, followed by the sheriff’s office arrest of a Lavonia man on April 8 for child molestation charges. A Danielsville man was also arrested by the sheriff’s office on April 7. He was also charged with child molestation.
Jessie Wayne Shumake, 24, of 219 Sanders Circle, was arrested on April 7 and charged with multiple counts of aggravated child molestation, child molestation and sexual exploitation of children, according to press releases from the sheriff’s office and GBI.
Arrest warrants obtained by The Sun allege Shumake “created/produced a visual medium depicting a minor or a portion of a minor’s body engaged in sexually explicit conduct.” Shumake allegedly produced an image depicting a sexual act with a prepubescent child, according to warrants.
Shumake is also accused of committing various sexual acts to a child under 16 years old at his residence on Sanders Circle, according to warrants.
Shumake is charged with two counts of sexual exploitation of children, two counts of child molestation and four counts of aggravated child molestation.
In what authorities say is an unrelated case, Dwayne Ray Fleming, 34, of 128 Placid Cove, Hartwell, was also arrested on April 7 and charged with multiple counts of sexual exploitation of children, or distribution of child pornography.
Arrest warrants allege Fleming knowingly distributed multiple images depicting adults engaged in sexually explicit conduct with prepubescent children and images of nude prepubescent
children.
Fleming is charged with five counts of sexual exploitation of children.
Jimmy Darryl Holland, 60, of 1135 Griffin Road, Lavonia, was arrested on April 8 and charged with three counts of child molestation, two counts of aggravated sodomy, enticing a minor for indecent purposes and contributing to the deliquency of a minor.
Arrest warrants allege Holland engaged in sex acts with a child under 16 years old and also provided them with a Juul device or pods for the consumption of nicotine.
Cody Edward Bales, 34, of 2668 Faye Carey Road, Danielsville, was arrested on April 7 and charged with one count of child molestation for allegedly “showing pornography to a child under 16 years of age,” according to arrest warrants.
Fleming, Holland and Shumake are being housed in the Hart County Jail. Bales was released on a $10,000 own recognizance bond after signing a consent bond order, according to court documents.
The GBI announced both Fleming’s and Shumake’s arrest last Thursday and said an investigation into the possible sexual exploitation of children by Fleming and Shumake via an online service was conducted by the GBI as a part of an 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 and the online sexual exploitation of children.
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, according to the GBI’s press release.
Anyone with information about these cases or any other cases of child exploitation is asked to contact the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Child Exploitation Unit at 404-270-8870.