Investigators with the Hall County Sheriff’s Office and Georgia Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force recently charged a Gainesville man with 22 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor.
Deputies took Fenton Leander Potter, 18, into custody on Friday morning, June 25, at his North Hall County residence.
Agents began the investigation on Friday, June 18, after receiving a cyber tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
According to the sheriff’s office, preliminary details revealed that between March 24 and 25, 2021, Potter possessed at least 11 images of child pornography on an electronic device when he transferred the images to his Tumblr account.
“Investigators executed a search warrant at Potter’s Westwood Trail home on the morning of his arrest and seized several electronic devices. Additional charges are possible following forensic processing of the electronics,” says HCSO spokesperson Derreck Booth.
Potter was booked in at the Hall County Jail following his arrest. He was released the next day on a $45,500 bond.
Before his Friday arrest, Potter was out of jail on bond following his arrest earlier in the week in an unrelated case. Sheriff’s Office investigators took him into custody at his residence on Monday morning, June 21, on charges of statutory rape and electronic exploitation of a minor.
According to the initial details of the earlier case, between June 1, 2020, and Jan. 30, 2021, Potter had sex on multiple occasions with the female victim, who was under the age of 16.
In the course of the statutory rape inquiry, investigators obtained a search warrant for Potter’s phone. During preliminary processing of the device, detectives located two pornographic videos involving children, officials say.
Both cases remain under investigation by the Hall County Sheriff’s Office.
