Ft. Gordon Officer Charged with Sexual Exploitation of Children

Richard Andrew Mitchell turned himself in to the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office Thursday after a Special Agent with the GBI’s High Technology Investigations Unit (HTIU) obtained an arrest warrant charging Mitchell with one count of Sexual Exploitation of Children.

By: WJBF Staff | WJBF-TV
Published: August 13, 2010

A 47-year-old Chief Warrant Officer at Fort Gordon has turned himself in to the Columbia County Sheriff. Richard Andrew Mitchell faces charges of sexual exploitation of children after investigators seized his computer from his home last month.

According to a press release from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the arrest is "the result of a joint investigation conducted by the GBI, the US Army CID at Ft. Eglin AFB in Florida and at Ft. Gordon in Grovetown, GA and the Fort Walton Beach Police Department on an individual using peer to peer (P2P) file sharing software to share child pornography via the internet."

Mitchell was identified as the suspect sharing the child pornography after authorities executed search warrants with various internet service providers.

A search warrant was executed at Mitchell’s Grovetown home on July 15th. Investigators seized a laptop computer and external hard drive. During the on-site forensic preview of Mitchell’s laptop computer, multiple movie files of suspected child pornography were found, according to the GBI.